Born to scream, forced to yap @foxboytail - Tumblr Blog

Okay, trying to do this the right way this time.

Hi, I'm Percy, I'm a trans man (as in man not birthday boy) in my late 20s. I'm queer and consider myself a gay man.

This is kind of like my online diary. If you stumble upon it, then I guess consider yourself lucky? But I'm not tagging anything because I don't really want to be noticed by anybody.

A little history behind this blog is that a few years back, I was on transmasc tumblr a lot. But I found in general that tumblr and facebook in particular were making me an angrier person, so I decided I'd stop using them.

As I've come to find out, quitting social media is easier said than done. For one, you literally have nothing to do when you're at work or waiting for appointments. And for another it's harder to keep in touch with people. Also, I have certain people whose blogs I do like to keep up with, but a lot of people keep their posts restricted to only people with tumblr accounts.

But then discourse happened and I kept seeing takes that set my teeth on edge. I used to drive myself into mental health crises from getting into bitter arguments with people (where I'd literally want to chomp them and rip them apart like a dog with a stuffed animal). But I still want to just... say things sometimes. So this is my blog to do just that. Think of it kinda like... me answering those reader comprehension questions you get at the end of literature homework. Except with tumblr discourse.

This means that if you see something you disagree with here, your options are to block me, scroll past, or get hit by a truck. I will not be arguing with or debating anybody for any reason. Try to start and you're getting blocked. I do not accept criticism for my views because I am tired of being verbally abused for being sexy and smart. Again, if you really think my takes are bad, just block me.

Anyway, here are some of my opinions:

-Transandrophobia is not real and people who insist it is are cryptoTERFs or useful idiots.

-Saying misandry is a real axis of oppression is like saying cisphobia and heterophobia are. Which they're not. But it would be awesome if they were (yes I'm a man yes I hate men. We exist <3)

-The death penalty and prisons shouldn't exist. Not even for the yucky icky bad criminals you don't like.

-If you're pro-prison you're pro-rape, racism, homophobia, transphobia, and transmisogyny. None of these people will ever be free until the last prison burns to the ground.

-Anti psychiatry as an institution but not necessarily anti therapy. Therapy can work with the right person but it won't help much under a coercive system.

-US military can die in a fire. As can this entire country. I hate it here.

foxboytail

And also like, inb4 anyone starts yelling at me, I know we get tons of messages from cis people telling us it's not okay to be men, etc-- but what they mean is that it's not okay for *us specifically* to be men because we are trans, not that being a man is a bad thing in general.

Trans women are both told that it's not okay for them to be women *and* that it's not okay to be a woman in general. That is the difference.

Like yes, it is okay for trans men to be men. I am a trans man myself; to say otherwise would be quite hypocritical of me. But we cannot beg trans women to validate us as their oppressors. That's just not okay.

foxboytail

In fact, I'd argue that the harmful message we as trans men hear more often than "it's not okay to be a man" is "you're not a real man". And I have literally never heard any of these women being shredded tell us we're not real men. In fact, I have often heard them say "trans men are men" when criticizing us for being misogynistic.

And then the people who claim to be defending us will cry the opposite of that constantly. Strange!

And also like, inb4 anyone starts yelling at me, I know we get tons of messages from cis people telling us it's not okay to be men, etc-- but what they mean is that it's not okay for *us specifically* to be men because we are trans, not that being a man is a bad thing in general.

Trans women are both told that it's not okay for them to be women *and* that it's not okay to be a woman in general. That is the difference.

Like yes, it is okay for trans men to be men. I am a trans man myself; to say otherwise would be quite hypocritical of me. But we cannot beg trans women to validate us as their oppressors. That's just not okay.

A straight woman sees a lesbian making positivity posts for lesbians. She feels insecure because she's not included, so she asks the lesbian if it's okay to be a straight woman. The lesbian would probably get frustrated by this. She might even roll her eyes, or playfully tell her no, it's not okay to be straight. Even though they are both women, it's easy to understand why this interaction was not misogynistic.

A disabled white man sees a disabled black man making positivity posts for disabled black people. He feels insecure because he's not included, so he asks the disabled black man if it's okay to be a disabled white man. The black man would probably get frustrated by this. He might even roll his eyes or playfully tell him no, it's not okay to be white. Even though they are both disabled, it's easy to understand why this interaction was not ableist.

A trans man sees a trans woman making positivity posts for trans women. He feels insecure because he's not included, so he asks the trans woman if it's okay to be a trans man. She gets frustrated. She probably rolls her eyes. She playfully tells him no, it's not okay to be a man. It should be easy to see why there's no issue with this interaction.

But everyone rips her to shreds and tells her she's transphobic anyway.

Trans women when they see a woman early in transition letting the dysphoria get to her head and making her say things like "no one will ever see me as a woman":

"Babe, you are beautiful! That's all just the dysphoria talking! Everyone thinks this during these early days, and they're always wrong! I know that it's so hard and demoralizing, HRT works agonizingly slowly, but it does work and you will get through this. You have the strength, you've already proven that by transitioning! And you don't have to do it alone,we will always be here for you!" Trans men when they see a man early in transition letting the dysphoria get to his head and making him say things like "no one will ever see me as a man":

"You're right, they won't. This is transmisand— er, transandrophobia! They hate you for being a man, which is why no one is ever gonna see you as anything but a confused masculine woman at best! Everyone can sense your divine feminine energy that was bestowed upon you by your female socialization. You are an afab, and you will always be female. You were born with a uterus and that will define your life always and forever. This is what intersectional feminism is all about! Have you not read Stone Butch Blues? You should join our Harry Potter book club!"

no-sharks-on-the-sun

they killed him for this

roycohn

idk man like i am of course the number one believer that if you're raised in a very culturally conservative environment you need to put your whole pussy into deconstructing the ideas and flawed reasoning and thought schemas you were raised with and not just substituting one language of orthodoxy for another and calling yourself progressive. but it will never set right with me that "having MAGA/republican family members" is treated like a valid gotcha against anyone if they themselves do not subscribe to those beliefs. like yeah like 40-50% of the country is conservative to some degree. a lot of people think that shit. isn't the point that we WANT there to be more people willing to walk away from the political beliefs they've been raised with? why are we holding people responsible for what their dad thinks?

tboy-trash

we're far too culturally obsessed with men who are mean and rough around the edges but turn out to be big softies underneath it all when, in reality, most men who are like this are simply dicks

#so true #i think its just part of a fantasy yk #in the same way we love villains who only do evil things because they have a good motive behind it #when in actuality most incredibly bad peoples motives are like #'i wanted money' 'i hate women' etc #many such cases!

foxboytail

I think when we address things like mental health, abuse, social dynamics etc, we need to stop saying what's normal vs not normal and focus more on what's healthy, helpful, productive etc. Our society normalizes a lot of harmful things; trying to judge on a metric of what's "normal" is going to set people up for failure.

foxboytail

So many people argue with me when I say that child abuse is normalized, for example, because they think I'm saying that child abuse is acceptable. For the record, it's not-- but we can't even get adults to unanimously agree that spanking is wrong. You know. Literally hitting a child while bending them over and forcing them to expose their private area. You still have people (even young ones, not just boomers) who swear up and down that physically (and some advocates would argue sexually) assaulting a child is fine and necessary for their social development.

And that's just physical abuse. It doesn't even begin to touch emotional and verbal abuse, and not the more insidious forms of it. It doesn't touch parentification, inappropriate boundaries, comparison to other children, yelling, or stripping of autonomy.

Child abuse is normal to our society. It is not healthy. Those concepts are completely different.

kayla-denker

"Love" that it has somehow become controversial even among trans men to say that trans men are men. And not in some metaphorical sense or whatever, not in a "gender isn't real" sense, not in a "but they're still female" sense, but in the sense that trans men are real, actual, MEN. And in addition: trans men that medically transition are MALE. That's what medical transition does: it changes your fucking sex! That's the whole point of it! And no, not just when you get grs, HRT alone does that too!

But no, so fucking many of them hate trans women so goddamn much that they've committed to misgendering themselves and spreading TERF ideology about how "they'll always be female" just so they can insist that the inverse is also true: that trans women are actually, and always will be, men and male.

I think when we address things like mental health, abuse, social dynamics etc, we need to stop saying what's normal vs not normal and focus more on what's healthy, helpful, productive etc. Our society normalizes a lot of harmful things; trying to judge on a metric of what's "normal" is going to set people up for failure.