gender/sex abolition is a very worthwhile thing to aim for, but it cannot be done by wishing it away--it is done through the full dissolution of the patriarchal system. based on that statement it sounds like we are far away from that, and that is indeed the case. and more crucially, it means this cannot be achieved by wishing it away and pretending it does not exist. transmisogyny, for example, is an institutional force that we are faced with every day. this is the exact value of tme/tma as terminology--not to reinforce a sex binary, but to describe an oppression by literally naming it directly.
i sympathize with the desire to be rid of amab/afab as labels. in a certain context there is value to this, where those labels have been used to repackage biological determinism. but discarding them fully is bound to fall short, because we are still bound to systemic (rather than biological) circumstances based on our agab. that is the arena of this terminology. if we were to discard them, we would discard a piece of essential language towards understanding the oppressions trans people face. to put it another way, whether we like it or not we are bound to these categories by hegemonic society, and to that end it is sometimes useful to name them. and while tme/tma is not a synonym for afab/amab, it exists for the same purpose. and all the same, if we did not have it we would be lacking a critical piece of language to describe oppression.
so when trans women use these terminologies to have critical discussions about transmisogyny, we aren't trying to reassert the gender binary or biological determinism. we are trying to have critical discussions about transmisogyny! something we cannot solve by pretending it does not exist.
THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS
