It bothers me so much that the healthcare system relies so much on the patient's ability to advocate for themselves, organize their history, and be so persistent against every medical “professional” who says there’s nothing wrong/they can do. But so many struggle with fatigue, brain fog, and face such ingrained systemic barriers, that the people who need and deserve help and support can’t access it.
I saw something recently that resonated with me: “Access shouldn't depend on who has the energy to fight for it.” And I’ve never agreed with anything more.
Extra-hot day requires extra water. Which you're basically gonna have to pay for. You'll bleed money. And you're gonna have to carry that water with you. Extra weight. Pressing into your shoulder. The heavier pack against your back is gonna contribute to more overheating. Your shirt soaked with sweat along the spine. (How are you gonna keep your clothes clean?)
Do you have medications which will be destroyed if exposed to excessive heat, like insulin? How are you gonna carry them and keep them cool? Do you have to carry your entire day's worth of belongings with you at all times, or do you have a friend's house or something where you can stash them? How much extra time are you gonna have to waste traveling back and forth? An extra hour this way, an extra hour that way. Gotta factor in the time. What if it's chilly overnight? Do you have to carry your jacket with you? What's for lunch? Can you bring food, or will the heat ruin it?
All sticky and sweaty from the sun, just wanna peel your clothes off and cool down in the shower? Designated times when showers are available at many shelters are periods of maybe sixty minutes, maybe twice a day if you're lucky, 5:30-6:30 AM and 9:00-10:00 PM or whatever. No other accessible times. Can't make it because you're at work? Too bad. Get off work later than that, and just wanna quickly bathe? Too bad.
Do you work full-time, clock out exhausted, and wanna take a nap in the afternoon? Find a park with shade, I guess, because you're only allowed inside the shelter between 10:00 PM and 5:30 AM. Did you get off work a little late? Too bad, you missed the strict curfew of 10:00 PM and now you're not allowed in the shelter. Can't hang out on the bus, can't linger too long at the coffee shop, can't doze off at the library. Many cities went out of their way to explicitly criminalize falling asleep--or merely sitting in one place for too long--in a park, too. Are you sick? Can't take a nap. Are you disabled? Can't take a nap. You're forced to be awake, all day. You're forced to be upright, or moving. No loitering. No sleeping. No taking your shoes off. All day. Every day.
Do you need even a quick momentary escape from the heat? Well, you'd better have money. Even if you do, you'll have to doctor your appearance, go stealth-mode, don't attract the attention of petty middle managers. The coffee shop now locks their bathroom. It's for paying customers. Maybe you bought some tea. Well, don't overstay your welcome (the boss saw your backpack and perceived that you're homeless, which means you're essentially an intruder now, so you better get out and move on soon). The university campus added card-swipe readers to all the doors, so now you can't visit the library or cafeterias. Oh shit, you spent money on the tea, so now you can't afford lunch.
You don't have a pantry, you don't have a refrigerator. No pasta, no rice, no meal-prep, no stovetop, no oven, no leftovers. So you pretty much have to eat out all the time. You'll bleed more money.
And during a heatwave, during summer in general in some climates, each day brings the same challenges and anxieties again.
Where are you sleeping? Outside? What are the cops gonna do to you? What about the sneering homeowners, skeptical of your presence in their neighborhood? Staying at a shelter? Every morning, you enter a lottery, hoping your name will be randomly selected, giving you one of the available spaces to sleep indoors at the shelter. Maybe 300 people competing for 75 available spaces. And these aren't even necessarily 75 beds, might simply mean 75 available spaces to sleep on the concrete floor. So all day long, you commute, you hide from the sunlight, you go to work. And you wonder. You worry. You don't know if you'll even get to sleep on the floor later tonight, if they don't draw your name. Should you make alternative back-up plans, identify an outdoor space to sleep in? You line up single-file at the shelter door. Required. Can't be late. Is it still hot outside? Do you need to pee? Better hold steady. (In seasons other than summer: Is it raining? Is it snowing? Is there frigid wind? You've gotta stand in line for thirty minutes.) You find your designated inch-thick cheap plastic mat on the floor. No phone charger, no power outlet. Better not lose track of your phone, your bag, your cards/cash. Leave it unattended for a minute, and not only might it get snatched, but the shelter staff themselves will toss unattended items in the trash. Stepped to the bathroom for a couple minutes? You left your water bottle next to your floor-mat, now it's gone. In the same room with you, maybe 50 people, maybe more. Some crying, some conversing, some feuding, some coughing. All night. Next morning, 5:30, the lights are on, you've got ten minutes to get up and get back outside. Oh shit, did you take off your glasses? Anything you accidentally leave behind, you'll never see it again.
And so after all of that anxiety, did you get good rest? Hope so, because it's time to get back out in the heat and do it again, and repeat the same uncertainty, precarity, dread. Will they draw your name today? Where can you get water? Get moving, you've gotta clock in at your job. Do you work in retail, in customer service? Don't forget to smile. Oh shit, is it a Sunday? Is it a bank holiday? The city's buses might not be running. So you're walking. With your pack, and your extra water, and your aching shoulder. It's ninety degrees Fahrenheit and you're in direct sunlight.
its a loud minority thats likely partially a psy-op and 4tran4 + 4chan users anyways.
We don't hate you for the crime of being a trans woman, i promise you that. just like i dont want to be hated for the crime of being a trans man.
You have done nothing wrong by having an identity. The people we are vocal about have done everything wrong by being exclusionist bigots, not by being trans women.
There are plenty of people spreading transandrophobic, exorsexist, and intersexist rhetoric that aren't transfem. It's just unfortunately a lot of people SPECIFICALLY on tumblr that perpetrate this rhetoric are transfems who are radfem.
Still, even then, it's a loud minority. Youve done nothing wrong by being a trans woman. Absolutely nothing.
There is no moral alignment inherently tied to one's involuntary identity. You are defined by your character, not your identity.
quite honestly I think the issue with modern transfeminism is white people. And in some manners yes wwii plane diagram but also white people are trained that their experiences are the prototypical experience from birth. Their gender is the gender everyone has or aspires to have. Their culture is everyone’s culture. Their experiences are Everyone’s experiences or else if not then that person is Scary Other and probably some sort of Unperson. And then these white people take that mindset into feminism and transfeminism and if someone is doing gender Differently from either them or their mindset view of whatever amount of nice gender boxes they have then they’re Wrong and maybe a Scary Yucky Other. There is no meaningful feminism without antiracist action.
you are so so so fucking right and Emi Koyama literally made this connection decades ago. she literally directly connected her own neglect of trans men and nonbinary/genderqueer people in the Transfeminist Manifesto to the Manifesto's lack of intersectional awareness & made this profoundly insightful self-critique:
But there was something unsettling about the “Manifesto.” In an effort to forge an alliance between transsexual and non-transsexual women, the piece neglected the struggles of transsexual men and other transgender or genderqueer people who do not identify as “women” unless it was convenient to include them. The piece was also weak on intersectional analysis–that is, how anti-trans sentiments and oppressions compound and complicate oppressions other than sexism, including and especially racism and classism. It borrowed from the work of women of color when it was useful–for example, to point out that transsexual women’s unique experiences should not be the basis for their exclusion because to do so would presuppose a singular universal female experience, which is obviously false–without contributing any insights as to how the inclusion of trans sensibility helps to fight racism and other oppressions.
The fact is, I had only been living in my new home town for three months or so when I wrote this piece, and I was not fully in touch with my own discomfort with the white feminism that filled nine out of ten weeks of the Introduction to Women’s Studies, nor did I feel confident enough to challenge the view that feminism is simply about advocating for women and fighting sexism–and nothing more. In short, what I had written was a version of white feminism that was modified just enough to include transsexual women. At the time, I felt that it was the only safe way to write a feminist theory that advanced transsexual women’s place within feminism. I spent next couple of years meeting more people with a common commitment for justice for all, slowly building the self-confidence it takes to “transform silence into language and action,” as Audre famously stated.
so yeah no modern transfeminism is literally just white feminism modified just enough to include (white etc.) transsexual woman. the author of the Transfeminist Manifesto herself pointed this out when reflecting on her own decisions when writing the Manifesto, which even in spite of this was more inclusive of trans men and nb/gq people than many people who identify as transfeminists today.
you see people like isuggestforcefem know that society protects rapists, coddles rapists, defends rapists, supports rapists at every turn, but still manage to post drivel like this begging you to sympathise with rapists and call it leftist and transfeminist. won't you please think of the rapist who raped those trans women? won't you please pity her? won't you forgive her?
so let me say it: rape is a reason to act. rape should mandate removal from communities lest rapists be a danger to those around them, given that they committed rape. rapists should lose their jobs. rapists should be removed from their sources of income. rapists, committing a violent sex crime with no possible justification other than their own entitlement to the sexual possession of another's body, are a danger to others.
if this comes across as extremist to you, consider that the defense of rapists is the global status quo, that leniency towards rapists is the global status quo, that not believing victims of rape is the global status quo, that believing rape "isn't that bad" is the global status quo, and that keeping rapists around because they're nice if you just keep them from raping and it's terrible to kick them out of the friend group or hobby or job just for a little rape is the global status quo. if you believe in those things, you are doing what a patriarchal society is already doing. you're just more sensitive because people like you are the ones on trial.
rape culture and the fear of community-based consequences, or: have you considered the feelings of that missing stair you'd like to fix?
in 2012 the concept of the missing stair was, quite fittingly for the subjects I talk about on here, initially coined. Cliff Jerrison shared on his blog in 2012, speaks of a known rapist who, in spite of knowledge of his abuse, is continually welcomed to continue participating in BDSM & kink circles she frequents, and describes the attitude those around the rapist cultivate to "step around" his presence rather than confronting him entirely, resulting in him remaining active for months after his behaviour was known:
People had gotten so used to working around this guy, to accommodating his 'special requirements,' that they didn't feel like there was an urgent problem in their community.
at the beginning of the blog post, Cliff describes community members' reaction to a previous post discussing, but not naming, this individual:
When I posted about a rapist in a community I belonged to, although I gave almost no details about the guy except "he's a rapist," I immediately got several emails from other members of that community saying "oh, you must mean X." Everyone knew who he was! Tons of people, including several in the leadership, instantly knew who I meant. The reaction wasn't "there's a rapist among us!?!" but "oh hey, I bet you're talking about our local rapist."
everyone knew who this man was. everyone knew what he was doing. but there was a tacit agreement that everyone had come to to not disturb the peace regardless. not one openly discussed or planned, but one enabled by the foundation of community's dynamics: priding itself on being tightly-knit and a safe space; seeing itself as safer more In The Know about sexual violence and abuse than outsiders due to the rules they'd made themselves adhere to; seeing itself as a home for the Freaks and Weirdos who would otherwise be uncomfortably tolerated at best in Normie spaces, but who were welcomed with open arms in this kink space.
these dynamics formed the base of a community that prioritised staying silent and not rocking the boat over confronting issues directly, that enabled a man with a history of sexual violence to go on to enact further sexual violence against more women, and then was reluctant to even do something as basic as excluding a known rapist from their group because, well, he's a nice guy really, and he's been kicked out before, people have been really mean to him, he's fine if he just has someone watching him to make sure he's not raping:
Oh, but, like, she only said he raped her and no one was there to see it and it was really confusing and stuff and anyway what do you want us to do, like, treat the guy like a leper? He got kicked out of one scene already and that was like a couple years ago and we're trying to help him change and now he's okay as long as someone keeps an eye on him at parties.
does any of this sound familiar to you?
in 2015, Charity Heartscape/porpentine's Hot Allostatic Load is published online. it is a deeply personal essay chronicling porpentine's experience of abuse in queer/trans/feminist circles and the disposability with which porpentine and other transfems are treated by communities like those she was part of, including by other transfems:
I was threatened into not defending myself, gaslit into silence, told that people knew “things” about me that were never explained. When I asked how I could do accountability, when I said I would do whatever they wanted, they said that I was “incapable” of accountability, that my crime was unknown and my sentence was permanent. That is the point where the body starts to die.
on Tumblr and Bluesky, in 2026, enlightened transfems use "being HALed" to refer to anything from "people kicked me out of the discord server because I wouldn't stop talking about pornography" to "other transfems keep talking about all those women I assaulted and the victims won't shut up and it's an attempt to lynch me" (real thing that happened, anonsee/storyweavingspider strangled multiple women to unconsciousness and joked about it after, including referring to one of her victims as "strangulation girl", do not forget that!) while going "well none of you have considered what if someone wants to forgive a rapist 🥺what if we forgave the rapist 🥺 what about nuance for rapists 🥺"
those more embedded in these communities than I have already talked about this inclination to reference this deeply personal essay as a sort of get-out-of-any-form-of-social-consequences-whatsoever-free card:
including multiple posts of people highlighting that serial sexual abusers cite this essay to frame their exclusion from previously friendly groups for their abusive behaviour as "social murder" in a prime example of DARVO:
almost fourteen beautiful years to the day after Cliff Jerrison's blog post shoved the concept of the missing stair in front of us, Tumblr's transfeminists want you to believe, sincerely, that the act of accusation is equal to or even worse than whatever act that an individual may have committed, that by accusing someone you are trying to kill them, murder them, lynch them, that you are hurting women by accusing them of things, how dare you?
we can recognise this as what it is: dissonant wailing and flailing of "cancel culture bad!", rape culture manifest, but Woke. that's all it is. attempting to say that it is anything more is an indication that you have been blinded by the language being used to dress the Rape Culture up all nice for your consumption. you need to stop that and see it for what it is.
things do not have to be this way. this applies to your friend groups online and IRL, to your blood family, to your chosen family, to your hobby group, whatever. you do not have to tolerate those who have harmed people around you, and those who have been harmed - be it you or someone else - should not fear that "rocking the boat" will simply cause trouble and Be Mean. cause the trouble. be mean. speak loudly.
there is no individual or group of people that is entitled to your companionship. there is no individual or group of people that you have to be nice to or be friends with or tolerate. there is no individual or group of people that should make you fear telling the truth of any events that have happened or fear telling the truth of what someone has done to you.
and on a whole, not exclusively applicable to cases of sexual violence: you do not have to keep being anyone's friend for any reason. you do not need to make someone Feel Included for any reason. if they're making you uncomfortable, if they're violating boundaries, if they're acting entitled, if the friendship sucks: it's good of you to try to reason things out and explain things to someone first. but you don't have to. and if you try to and things still aren't good, you're still uncomfortable:
I'll end this on the same note that Cliff ended his blog post on:
This isn't just about individuals, either. Everyone who says "I don't want to be a victim-blamer, but girls should know frat parties aren't safe places" is treating rape culture like a missing stair. Everyone who says "it's an ugly fact, but only women who don't make trouble make it in this business" is treating sexual harassment like a missing stair. Everyone who says "I don't like it either, but that's the way things are," and makes no move to question the way things are, is jumping over a missing stair somewhere.
Fixing staircases is a long and difficult and uncertain process. But let's at least stop blaming each other for not jumping well enough.
as an aside look whose white ass I found while digging for a few bsky screenshots for this post LMAO
anonsee also wrote her own version of Hot Allostatic Load called Black Hot Allostatic Load after being accused by multiple different transfems of sexual assault. lol.
Why is there a diarrhea parasite outbreak in America?
Because Donald Trump and his Republican allies cut funding to disease prevention and control.
Why is measles back in America?
Because Donald Trump and his Republican allies, including RFK Jr, cut vaccine and measles prevention funding and programs.
Why is the New World Screwworm infecting cattle in Texas, when it had previously been eliminated from the area?
Because Donald Trump and his Republican allies, including Elon Musk, cut USAID funding, which in part worked to monitor and prevent screwworm outbreaks.
Why was there a flu outbreak in our armed forces?
Because Donald Trump and his Republican allies, including Pete Hegseth, cut vaccination requirements for our armed forces, putting all of them at risk alongside our military readiness.
What contributed to the Covid outbreak?
Donald Trump and his Republican allies cut funding to a pandemic prevention program in his first term because Barack Obama had created it.
“America first” sends its regards. Trump voters, please learn your lesson. And if you don’t, it’ll be taught to you again with yet another diarrhea outbreak.
if you tell a trans woman she is "enforcing passing culture" by wanting to pass and expressing it i honestly hope nothing good happens in your life ever after that
This is why I'll never shut up about the part of Whipping Girl where Serano says we gotta stop calling it "passing." It pretty directly accuses us of 'hiding' or 'fooling people into thinking we're women.' We aren't "passing as women," we are women, we're being correctly gendered as women. When people deride us for "passing", they're blatantly saying that they don't think we're women. Afterall, nobody says cis women "pass as women" when they're correctly gendered as women.
“Why are people dropping they/them from profiles” “a lot of people have stopped being nonbinary” “i feel like a lot of people i knew who were nonbinary identify differently suddenly” its the violent exorsexism in larger society and within queer communities that happens like clockwork when there is a rise in anti-queer, anti-trans bigotry.
When fascism spikes, we get a two-fold where folks who cannot or will not assimilate are pushed by our oppressors to reconsider, and fellow queer/trans folks become some of the most aggressive enforcers of that “choice” in an attempt to buy safety within the majority.
This shit is why inter-community discourse is not just petty complaints—the refusal to hold solidarity with the weirdest, loudest, most visible queers in our midst is fascist as well as self-destructive. People are being forced into the closet, forced into labels that make others—including queer and trans people—more comfortable, because comfort and conformity becomes the biggest priority for many when shit hits the fan. And these are the scenarios that dont end up with nonbinary people dead.
You are abandoning the most vulnerable while preaching about privileges, and this saboteur mentality will not even ultimately save you when eventually you are either forced to learn that you do not fit how you thought you did or our oppressors shift the goalposts until even your presentation of sexuality and gender are not “normal” enough anymore.
I think arguments like "everyone loves gnc girls until we transition" is correct in identifying (temporary) preference but wrong about the conclusion. These bigots HATE gnc women, it's just preferable to being a man. Easier to keep in line. Bigots love to suddenly "love" a lot of groups when they can use them to reel you back in.
Bigots will throw binary trans people at nonbinary trans people. They don't love binary trans people, they don't wish you were binary trans, they wish you were a step closer to "normal" until they move the goalposts again.
"everyone loves tomboys" they fuckin loaaathe tomboys, but if they can convince you you're not trans, you're really a gnc girl, then they've got you back to "girl" and then they can go after the GNC part next.
There isn't an actual hierarchy in gender minorityship where ones are championed and others are loathed. They just know that 1. if you think each other are enemies you'll help tear each other down 2. if you moved back closer to their goal they can move you again because it's not about your specific path of gender transgression, the transgression itself IS their problem
you can be a trans man, trans woman, nonbinary person, xeno stargender, multigender, gnc man or woman, or just a person who identifies with cisheteronormativity but is getting flagged anyway because hyperscruitiny encourages us to find why someone doesnt belong
A cishet girl cutting her hair short gets immediately investigated for being gay or trans, we don't gotta pretend there is some threshold where True Minorities exist and others are permanently safe from scrutiny
btw i have seen some people using ''birthday girl'' to refer to transphobic trans women and i Do Not Like That. don't do that shit.
primarily because i think its fucking weird to have catty little insults for trans people we disagree with, even and perhaps especially when we disagree with them over actually harmful things they've done or rhetoric they contribute to. its unhelpful and adds fuel to the fire of emotion-first "my pain justifies being an asshole, if you want me to be kinder you just don't get my suffering" trans infighting, and no matter how good it feels i do not think it is right! it hurts all of us whether directly or indirectly because it contributes to a toxic culture, and it is genuinely poison to organizing socially and politically against patriarchy.
but also, on a practical level (which as a pragmatist i do not think is actually separate from the ethical level), its a bad fucking look! it is weird and shitty that people are so invested in coming up with catty little insults, or just adopting pre-existing slurs, to describe trans people they think are being transmisogynistic instead of just saying they are being transmisogynistic, and i think it is illustrative of the trends prevalent in the "transandrophobia isn't real" sphere that this is a thing people engage in and defend so much. if you agree with that point, you should understand that turning around and calling trans women "birthday girls" weakens that criticism! it makes it look hypocritical and easily written off!
when done right, taking the moral high ground should strengthen your arguments by making it so that people cannot argue you are being cruel or vindictive or bigoted when you make your point. it may be less satisfying but it is all around better for all of us. if you genuinely want there to be less cruelty from trans people towards trans people, you have to take some responsibility for the role you play in that. we all do! if The Discourse is really pissing you off, find ways to process that anger and frustration and pain that don't contribute to the very thing causing them in the first place.
Important notice: the tools people used to affirm their gender, does not tell you anything about that person‘s gender identity!
There are transfemmes who chest bind, there are transmascs who get laser hair removal, there are plenty of intersex folks who take E or T, there genderqueers and transneutrals/others who have had a Mastectomy or Vaginoplasty. There are plenty of transgender and intersex people who have some type of combination or none of these things.
Clothing doesn’t have gender, and neither does hormones, procedures, pronouns, or treatments!
I went from presenting as fairly androgynous to presenting as a femme girl, and this experience taught me so much about who is targeted by misogyny.
Now that people see me as a feminine girl, I face a lot of misogyny that's new to me. There are absolutely people who see femininity as a negative trait and who see feminine girls as ditzy and vapid.
This makes me understand where trans radfems are coming from. When you transition from being masculine or androgynous to being feminine, you face a specific kind of misogyny that's very real.
But that doesn't discount the misogyny faced by trans men, butch women, and many non-binary people. When I was seen as a masculine woman, I faced a completely different kind of misogyny. Just because many people see feminine people afab as being inferior doesn't mean they see masculine people afab in a more positive light (and I'd argue that these people face even worse misogyny, based on my lived experience).
Every trans person faces their own specific struggle. The fact that transmisogyny exists doesn't mean that transandrophobia and exorsexism don't exist too.
This blog is for promotion of the transunity/transunitism movement. It's meant to encourage solidarity and support among trans people and a better understanding of our social positions.
Anon: on
Current mods:
Sun (she/he/it)
More about transunity
The Transunitist Manifesto
On “Transunitism” (one of the first mentions of the term, date: Nov 26th, 2021)
What pisses me off the most is that y'all don't keep this doomerism to yourself, it would be one thing if you just wrote this shit in a diary, but y'all are putting that out there trying to scare young trans people into being divided. spreading the idea that trans unity is an "unobtainable fantasy" only serves to make trans people feel even more alone and desperate than before, during a time where being united will give us strength.
Trans people should be encouraged to find safety and community in one another, and not just with trans people that are "like them."
The sign many left wingers have subconsciously accepted moving right on covid and embraced lowering public health standards is when people seem to think “masks should be mandatory in healthcare settings /airplanes “ is somehow a radical position to take in an ongoing pandemic
its so fucking weird because "masks in healthcare" should be the default all of the time. Doctors and nurses are literally employed to go from sick person to sick person, treating immunocompromised people especially often.
