transfeminism blog

she/her. rumoured to not even like geodes that much

[hauntedfragmentgeode]

if i ever miss a message i got or something like that know that its because of the

[hauntedfragmentgeode]

Queer unity has been trying as hard as possible to downplay any possible transfem issue. Pay gap adding up to thousands a year? Not a big deal. V coding? Never mention it. Trans women are much more likely to be sent to an early grave than their male counterparts? Stop bringing that up. Trans people collaborating with kiwifarms? Just internet drama.

You know what IS an important issue? Getting called a fucking birthday boy. They get all hands on deck about it. They will write VERY long posts about how important it is you not use it, and that anyone who does must be punished as severely as possible

There's only one explanation. The lives of trans women are so worthless to them, so fucking disposable, that a trans man getting invalidated is actually more important to them. That's how these people, who demand we view them as family and allies, who think we should be ready to die for them, view us.

I know people who treat house flies with more respect than that.

[comingtotheendofthings]

It’s really disingenuous to talk about trans men’s issues as if the biggest problem trans men are talking about is being called birthday boys. Our priority should not be comparing experiences based on our own limited perspectives. Those are serious issues for trans women…why do you bring them up only to say being called a birthday boy is all trans men think is an important issue for them?

Trans people SHOULD be sympathizing and assisting with each other’s issues, and part of that is having the decency to recognize when you do not actually understand other trans people’s biggest problems.

[hauntedfragmentgeode]

You're missing the point of the post. What I meant was that minor slights against trans men are being treated with much more seriousness and severity than the actually serious issues trans women are put through.

Like, for example, one of the things I referenced in the post is a study which found that trans men are paid on average about ~17% more than trans women, which adds up to thousands of dollars even on lower wages. One of the most common responses to that was that it doesn't matter much, because its only a "slight" difference. There's other statistics like this that get dismissed in the same tone.

Meanwhile, these same accounts will rant endlessly about minor slights like the birthday boy thing. They dismiss major transfem issues as minor nitpicks, while treating minor slights against them as huge issues.

Hopefully at this point you understand what I mean, and why I brought up such a minor issue: To contrast the two responses and show how queerunity cares a lot more about one group than the other.

[hauntedfragmentgeode]

What is it with queerunity blogs comparing transfem-centered anything to racial segregation. I wouldn't comment on it but I've seen it happen multiple times. Why is that the first thing you compare it to

[hauntedfragmentgeode]

Have you seen the whole anti transfemininity thing? its supposed to be a replacement movement for transfeminism (like the transgynephobia movement). And obviously, I want to know. What does this "better" transfeminism look like?

If you're expecting something like this blog where I try and compile various shit that other trans people are doing to us, you're in the wrong place. Queerunity still believes that trans women are not oppressed by other trans people, so there's very little on that. inn fact, this movement that's meant to be for transfem people barely even mentions transfem people.

So, what IS it used for? Well, obviously there's a lot on general transphobia, a lot of posts about "trans men, enbies, and trans women". Vague general stuff that could go in any trans tag. The only time when transfem people *specifically* are advocated for is when the more general transphobes target a trans women.

Obviously queerunity hates transphobes, that doesn't change my opinion at all. Plenty of shitty people hate transphobes, and there's a reason the only transmisogynists they'll call out are the ones who also hate trans men.

But even that is maybe 25-50% of the tag. The rest is just standard queerunity posting. "Stop fighting your trasmasc brothers" is something I'd expect to see out of a tag raider, but here it's standard posting. It far outnumbers anything that could honestly be called transfeminism.

So, that's "anti transfemininity" movement. A transfeminist movement that hardly even mentions trans women. I guess this what "good transfeminism" is to them.

But. I wanna mention one last thing. The actual tag is barely posted in. Once or twice a day, maybe? And you know, after all the times trans women's stuff has been co-opted, I think it would be really funny if "anti transfemininity" became one of the standard tags for transfeminists to post in. Maybe that way, it'll finally become useful.

[hauntedfragmentgeode]

"I figured out why so many trans women hate TMRAs!"

The assaults? The abusive relationships? The way they constantly try and make everything about men? The times they sicced kiwifarms on a bunch of popular accounts to shut them up? The way they downplay our issues in favour of their own? The way they tear down every remotely successful trans woman? Their ritual of putting trans women In Their Place when they get too mad? The fact they never stand up for trans women unless they think they'll benefit? Their monolithic ideals of "queer culture"? That creepy thing where they insist I call them siblings?

"No! It's because you have trauma involving men, and you're taking it out on trans men because its easier!"

[mousidy]

I think my one take that might be unpopular with other transfeminists is I'm not that fond of the term "theyfab"

I've heard lots of very good arguments for why we should have it, and I get that its purpose is to address when people weaponize their agabs against us, so I don't necessarily begrudge those who use it, but I think the term itself doesn't do a great job communicating its purpose. I wouldn't feel right calling even the worst agab weaponizer a "theyfab" because my issue is with their privilege and their weaponization of it, not with their agab itself, or their pronouns

[hauntedfragmentgeode]

This has been talked about extensively, you're just TME.

[ghostlyharrow]

people love to try and handwave transfeminism as some quote-un-quote “terminally online queer in-fighting” or whatever which is inane and bad faith in many ways, but primarily of all is the fact that anyone actually present in offline irl queer spaces should be able to see how much more present and prevalent transmisogyny is irl

like i live in a pretty small city where — for the queer community around my age — you’re probably only ever a couple people removed from anyone else. i can tell you that i don’t know/know of a single tme person — even those rare few who are supposedly transfeminists — who is not at the very least still friends with many people who are actively transmisogynistic. its either they’re an active transmisogynist, or they tolerate and police their friends who are.

so no event is safe; no one person is safe. the whole community is complicit. maybe thats why theres hardly any trans women in these friend groups or at these events? maybe thats why we’re supposedly all “terminally online” or whatever? maybe its because your transfeminism is the thing thats actually terminally online rather than present irl? tumblr users self-interrogate or introspect for five fucking seconds please

[ghostlyharrow]

we aren’t even allowed to be experts on our own experiences. we have to be spoken down to like children, and be spoken over with gross misrepresentations by people who claim to be our allies and kin. university panels on transfeminity by a bunch of tmes. trans lesbians being called pervert crossdressers by supposedly well-respected scholars of queer and gender studies. We have been abandoned holy shit we have been completely abandoned

[autogynophelia]

A lot of "G*nd*r Cr*t*c*ls", through their own bigotry, accidentally stumble into having a better understanding of transmisogyny than other transmisogynists. E.g. if you talk about how trans women have much higher rates of unemployment, they will often accept that it's true, but will say it's not surprising that employers don't want us because we're creepy and weird.

Like, well done, you've nailed how transmisogyny manifests a lot of the time, in snap instinctive revulsion based not on our actual behaviour but rather on our appearance, voice, mannerisms, etc.

It's actually kind-of refreshing to be faced with someone who isn't saying "trans women aren't especially marginalised" but rather "trans women are especially marginalised, but that's good because they're freaks". It's moved from a dispute about the severity of oppression, to one about whether oppression is good or not, and that's a dispute where the right and wrong sides are trivial to identify.

"G*nd*r Cr*t*c*ls" are just taking pre-existing societal bigotry, saying it out loud, and calling it "feminism". Like, I think you'll find that there's already a political movement that is openly disgusted by people it considers men deviating from their state-assigned gender expression, did you accidentally choose the wrong F ideology from the political dictionary?

[tacticalgrandma]

New discourse quotable dropped

[jackalopeisaac]

This was a response to a trans girl who was talking about how trans characters are/were treated in horror films like psycho. She stated it hadn't been talked about very much and she's correct. A lot of thar conversation only just now started up and most prior conversation around was...not great.

[long-lost-lexicon]

The thing is you can't even say a lot of queer transmisogynists seem to think that their identity inherently excludes them from being able to "really" oppress trans women because a load of the people in question will say with their full chests "Yes, I am inherently different from a cis man being bigoted to you in exactly the same way, because we're In Community". A lot of people are utterly unwilling to recognise that the people they like are not any less culpable for their transmisogyny than the hypothetical cishet white man who is not marginalised in any way.

I am so, so sick of the idea that there's some tangible line between "the people oppressing us all" and someone who, despite being the target of transphobia from others, still chooses to enrich themselves with transmisogyny when they get the chance. It's not infighting when we were never allowed into your """community""" in the first place, and your bros aren't better than any other misogynist.

[hauntedfragmentgeode]

I should mention now, in case it comes up: I'm not from 4chan. I don't know what 4chan even is. I know its some fuckass social media site that's apparently super alt right.

I did used to be an egalitarian - and by that I mean one of those dipshit anti-sjw people, back when that was the usual term. (I actually remember when the term "woke" was coined, although I don't think it was used as a derogatory yet). I never really advocated them out loud, but I did hold the beliefs back then.

I deconverted years ago. I can't give you a specific date because it was more of a process of becoming more moderate until eventually flipping to the other side. This wasn't because I had transitioned, and in fact I wouldn't transition until years later.

The only real reason I haven't completely left that part of my life behind is because it's so relevant to my current life. I see a large group of men proclaim feminism is about all genders, that men are oppressed by women, and that modern feminism has been corrupted by man-hating radicals, and all I can think of is a time when I agreed.

[hauntedfragmentgeode]

i meant to queue that but whatever

[hauntedfragmentgeode]

I should mention now, in case it comes up: I'm not from 4chan. I don't know what 4chan even is. I know its some fuckass social media site that's apparently super alt right.

I did used to be an egalitarian - and by that I mean one of those dipshit anti-sjw people, back when that was the usual term. (I actually remember when the term "woke" was coined, although I don't think it was used as a derogatory yet). I never really advocated them out loud, but I did hold the beliefs back then.

I deconverted years ago. I can't give you a specific date because it was more of a process of becoming more moderate until eventually flipping to the other side. This wasn't because I had transitioned, and in fact I wouldn't transition until years later.

The only real reason I haven't completely left that part of my life behind is because it's so relevant to my current life. I see a large group of men proclaim feminism is about all genders, that men are oppressed by women, and that modern feminism has been corrupted by man-hating radicals, and all I can think of is a time when I agreed.

[cdigoddess]

[hauntedfragmentgeode]

Tumblr's abelism is so much scarier to me because its so much more sincere. Like, when some tikotkker calls me schizo, they're not actually saying I'm schizophreic. They're saying I'm weird and/or stupid in an ableist way. When tumblr people throw around terms like agarophobia or trauma ideology, they mean it. They might even fully believe they've done you a favour, which is honestly ten times scarier to me.

[hauntedfragmentgeode]

Gendered socialization theory might just be the evolutionary psychology of the trans movement.

Like evopsych, socialization starts with a technically right but oversimplified premise - in this case, that what gender you are treated as when you're a child changes how you act as an adult.

They then take this premise and run with it, extrapolating as far as they want. In practice, this goes in absolutely absurd directions. Where evopsych infamously tried to explain why women like shopping, gender socialization instead claims to finally explain why trans women don't like you. Neither are discovering or finding anything new, but instead trying to find a good reason to be biased.

I mean, really looking at it, why are we assuming that the effects of being raised male are even slightly consistent? I've known so many trans women over my life and most have completely different experiences with the AMAB upbringing and take completely different lessons from it. I think there's a real chance the people making these theories know like, two trans women, who they barely knew yet absolutely hated, and based their understanding of how we work based on that.

It also, more importantly, it ignores everything-else based socialization. I mean really, why are gendered socialization theorists fixated on what gender you were raised as and not the dozens of other factors that can change someone's life? If you ask a bunch of random trans people what their formative experiences are, you're going to get so many different answers and very few will be specific to any AGAB.

In fact, the things touted as "common AMAB experiences" are neither common nor exclusively AMAB. Like, one thing that is considered a "common AMAB experience" is being told you're great and being uplifted - this is the reason trans women are so assertive and entitled.

And again, I can't imagine any of these socailziation theorists know trans women because what trans woman does that apply to?! Most I know are self loathing and took years to learn to consistently ask for things AS ADULTS. Meanwhile, I've known plenty of trans people who were either AFAB and AMAB that came out as entitled pricks, some of whom were even straight up abused as children.

This feeds into another crucial counterargument - that personal growth and change doesn't stop the instant you turn 16. What trans women do come out assertive, or learn to be that way, will quickly find out how much people hate assertive trans women. The experience of suddenly not being allowed to be mad is much more universal than anything AGAB - based, and yet, isn't explained by gendered socialization. Some kind of oppression - based socialization theory would explain it better, but that just leads back to the previous problems.

AGAB is, well, just a letter, really. Something you're meant to leave behind, regardless of what your current gender is. That WAS the point of transitioning, no idea what the fuck it is now. Maybe it's a elaborate fashion trend.

But anyways, TMRAs have been clinging on to it. Even when presented with all these problems, even when reminded this whole thing is a recycled TERF talking point, they cling to it for dear life. Just like evolutionary psych repeats ad nauseuem about evolution "not stopping at the neck", gender socialization theorists cling onto "unbringing affects behavior". Both hope you won't realize that they're barely even right about that one thing.

also where the fuck are intersex people supposed to fit into this stupid theory