Don't Mess With A Bunny!

29. TMA something. Not really here. Minors DNI/DNF

[plaidos]

a friend showed me this screenshot and i love the full “quiet part said out loud” implications here — Alison Bechdel is transmasc… apparently? i think what this person actually means is “these horrible trannies are tearing down the real biological females i mean afabs i mean the inherent connection between butches and transmascs.” (<- obvious terf canard)

[taliabhattwrites]

It's funny to me that transmascs go to bat for Jack Halberstam when he's actually immensely transphobic to trans men in Female Masculinity. He consistently writes about how he doesn't see a difference between trans men and butch lesbians, erases the existence of gay trans men, and was at one point even kicked out of a conference of trans men for spouting this shit to their faces.

Of course, Halberstam is also painfully transmisogynistic in his book and bizarrely fixated on the sexual politics of public bathrooms, but these folks don't care about that, so ...

I think a lot of Tumblr nonsense would be solved if people actually read the stuff they championed.

[taliabhattwrites]

This is the correct tag to put under a Talia post, except I want to assure everyone that I am very much impugning Jack Halberstam's honor and he can duel me about it

[taliabhattwrites]

So here's the link to my friend Isaac's thread on Tamale Masculinity [seriously, regendering transmascs in the title itself is a clue as to how much of a trash fire this is going to be]. Isaac is a sensible man and therefore not in Tumblr, I think, and the thread is both long and excruciating, so I'll leave some highlights here for everyone.

Yikes the first: Halberstam for some reason thinks the men's toilet is a site of "homosocial and homoerotic interaction", and less a "site for gender repression" when compared to the women's room.

This definitively proves that Jack Halberstam has never listened to a trans woman in his entire life, and that he is a bit too horny about men's toilets.

Highlight the first about Jack Halberstam just not giving a fuck about using the correct pronouns for transmasculine people, even when it's very clear how they identified!

Halberstam does that classic historian thing where the idea of acknowledging transmasculinity is in fact erasure or the imposition of 'modern' discourses on the past 'anachronistically'.

"They looked and felt like men, so I'm going to call them women"

I do not think that this is the biggest difference between a butch and a man, and the idea that a butch ceases to be a butch if she receives any sexual pleasure during intercourse is one that personally offends me as a femme with a butch wife.

Like, Halberstam isn't even doing right by cissexual lesbians in his shitty books! We're all getting hit in the face with his psychosexual hang-ups and soporific prose, imbued with the authority and prestige of a queer academy fundamentally repelled by the transsexual perspective.

"MASCULINE" IS NOT SYNONYMOUS WITH "NEVER WANTS TO BE FUCKED" JACK HALBERSTAM SHUT THE FUCK UP

Here's the bit about him simply refusing to consider trans men as anything other than "lost butches" and then seething as the criticism.

Note that the idea of trans men simply being poor, confused, lost lesbians is very firmly in the realm of GC rhetoric--I've seen this site acknowledge that much.

So yeah, transmascs: Please stop recommending Tamale Masculinity and Joke Halberstam to each other. Y'all deserve better than some theorybrained dipshit with no insight into gender whose fear of T and disgust towards transsexuals did not prevent him from successfully transitioning into academic failson.

[recreationaldivorce]

prisons separating gay couples when they learn two prisoners are dating is an incredible admission that one big reason why prisons are gender segregated is to deny prisoners the right to love

[mousey-toy]

prev tags by @gollumpussy

[plaidos]

somebody made a post claiming you said anyone who went to michfest back in the day is transphobic, i didnt believe the post but you should know about this rumor about you

well Michfest segregated trans women from attendance as a policy for decades, and everybody who attended this from at least the 90s onwards was intimately & personally aware of that segregation, because Camp Trans protested outside every single year.

just from a glance at the opening paragraph of wikipedia, you’d find out that The Human Rights Campaign, GLAAD, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, and the National LGBTQ Task Force all publicly opposed Michfest & its transphobic policies. even fucking celebrities like The Indigo Girls announced in 2013 they would not be returning or performing again whilst the exclusionary policy was still in place — which it was, right up until Michfest stopped in 2015 due to lack of support & constant boycotts.

i need yall to understand Michfest wasn’t like… incidentally transphobic, this was a massive massive conversation all throughout the 90s until 2015. Dyke Marches were canceling performances from musicians who attended Michfest, because it was universally seen as dirty, bigoted, “I got mine” behaviour to anybody who gave a fuck about trans rights.

Like, I have to reiterate; Michfest was a music festival that by policy segregated trans women (and trans women specifically by the way). It is segregation. Yes I fucking think everybody who happily attended SegrationFest, known for the violent hatecrimes & sexual assault that routinely happened to trans women who snuck in, and hasn’t apologised for it is transphobic.

Alison Bechdel was talking positively about Michfest being free from “the male socialised” (read: trans women) in 2017. Her most recent book, which only came out a couple years ago, openly praised it for its segregation policy.

It’s not a rumour, I think it: Michfest attendees are/were all terfs. The word terf was literally coined to describe Michfest attendees. By even the most basic & oldest usecase of the word, Alison Bechdel is definitionally a terf. just because she drew a nice cartoon or two about us doesn’t change the fact all her idols were terfs and all the people she hung out with were terfs and her politics are copy-pasted directly from the terf playbook.

[plaidos]

“Somebody started a rumour that you think people who attended an all-white, white-pride themed music festival, hosted by nazis, that bans non-white people as policy are racist… just letting you know so you can dispel this obvious lie” do you see how fucking insane you sound?

[marxistcalvinisthobbesist]

Transphobia in the Detrans Women’s Community

Originally published on Medium on 1/21/21 [CW: Transphobia, transmisogyny, ableism, references to sexual and domestic violence, homophobia]

michfest actually served as an extremely important nexus of organized transmisogyny, in propagating it, dispensing information, finding social links to other transmisogynists etc

[maykitz]

customer was a shitlib, and treatlerite. one night she orders grubhub, drunker than usual. kamala harris had lost the election. i delivered chipotle as a male driver. she didn't like that. not. one. bit.

[plaidos]

when anti-transfeminists say stuff like, “this is all just petty infighting/oppression olympics, all it does is divide people when they should have solidarity” it is particularly revealing, imo — there are plenty of reasons transfems would have for discussing the relative privilege transmascs have above us. i mean, for one, it helps us analyse the way the transmascs in our interpersonal lives are treating us, and secondarily, it helps us to better advocate for ourselves IN these personal lives by giving us the language & framework to recognise transmisogyny, how it functions & why/how it is normalised in the trans community.

but it doesn’t surprise me that a lot of misogynistic transmascs see these conversations as having “no benefit” — because they disbenefit from them personally! like, every time somebody says there’s no point to analysing if there there is a gendered hierarchy within the trans community (there is) (it’s the patriarchy, go figure), what they are actually saying is “I don’t see the point in trans women having the tools to analyse who is treating them poorly, how, and what they can do to stop it”

[repost-this-image]

1. All trans people are equally hated by transphobes. Trans women may be more visible, but the hate is still the same.

2. Why are transmascs and transfems fighting in the first damn place? We should be working together.

[plaidos]

1. even if it was true that “all trans people are equally hated by transphobes” (which is obviously demonstrably false), trans women face higher rates of homelessness, domestic violence, & unemployment than trans men. if you don’t care in the gap in those stats, you are an antifeminist.

2. why is it “fighting” for transfems to point out a misogyny problem within the trans community? do you think that the misogynists within the trans community should be unaddressed? if you think we should be working together, why the fuck aren’t you listening when we say we are being treated worse than you in our own fucking community, by people like you?

[traumatizeddfox]

“omg peoples mental health is so bad they don’t shower??” girl some people have such bad mental health they kill themselves

[estrogenesis-evangelion]

my rule of thumb for this, for any behavior that you look at and go, "god, how can you not (X)?" is to ask myself: well. how bad would it have to be, for me? how bad would it be before i would stop doing that thing? how bad would i have to feel?

what would have to go wrong in your life, and how wrong would it have to go, for you to stop bathing? to stop eating? to let the garbage pile around you until you can no longer see the floor?

how bad would you have to feel, and for how long, before you would stand on the street screaming at anyone & anything? beating your fists on your head and crying? how bad would it need to be?

do you think there's some fundamental difference between you and people who suffer until their lives are unrecognizable to you? can you face the knowledge that if things went badly enough, you would be just like them? just like them? just like

[gaylor-moon]

[lil-pippa]

[girlballs-archive]

me at the counter at mcdonalds asking for more extra mayo for my mcchicken

[neo-pussy-deactivated20250705]

girl the boycott

[girlballs-archive]

me at the counter at steak n shake asking for another extra large vanilla milkshake

[pickinganameisdifficult]

girl steak and shake suck ass

[girlballs-archive]

[heedra]

fuck "girl lunch" fuck "girl math" a woman is a hairy animal who sweats and grunts and excretes and hungers and gets wrinkly and dies eventually. you have to love that.

[heedra]

ppl are tagging this post with things like 'ooh i want to meet a woman like this' or with specific characters which kind of misses the point i was trying to make. ALL WOMEN ARE LIKE THIS. IT STANDS IN CONTRAST TO NOTHING. WRAP YOUR ARMS AROUND IT.

[rasairui]

Idk I just have no patience for trans men/masculine people who refuse to acknowledge transmisogyny. Like. The worst experience I ever had with transphobia was when I was mistaken for a trans women. In a culinary program, I was cutting bell peppers, and one of the other students, a really big dude in a student leadership position, walks in and accusatory goes "so are you trying to be a woman, or something?" And I'm like. Well I'm trying to small dice these peppers. And I tell him I'm not a she and he says something to the effect of "Yeah I know that much." He makes some comment abt how whatever I'm doing doesn't make sense and he doesn't get it and when I tell him he doesn't have to, that he just has to respect it, he says "I don't have to do shit!" And gets real mad! Like actual threats mad! Tells me he could bash my skull in and to meet him outside for a fight and yeah it was fucking scary! The entire interaction I'm reminding myself that I'm the one currently holding a knife, if he tries anything.

Fast forward a few days later and my period is kicking my ass. Just absolutely destroying me. I'm in the dish pit, and I am visibly struggling, I'm nauseous, I'm in pain and bracing myself against walls. I'm not walking straight. And the same student leadership guy who was so aggressive with me when he thought I was transfem?

He tells me I look like I'm going to pass out. He says it's obvious I'm in pain, I shouldn't be in class, I can go sit down and if nobody can replace me he'll do the dishes himself.

Like. Do you get it yet. It's not just that he felt comfortable openly threatening me in a room full of other people when he thought I was a trans woman. It's that he did a complete 180 and was not only willing to support me, but actually pick up my slack once he knew I wasn't "that kind" of transgender. As soon as one of our classmates confirmed to him that I wasn't the wrong type of trans person I suddenly became someone who actually deserved care and compassion in his eyes. The "bigots think we're all the same and hate all of is equally" rhetoric isn't fucking true. It's just peddled to deny the privilege we have over other members of our community so it's easier to ignore how inhospitable supposedly trans-centric spaces are for TMA people.

[rasairui]

@crimsaph I hope you don't mind me showing off your tags but yeah

This is an infuriating mindset a lot of fellow TME people have and it's just. So obviously glaringly selfish that it somehow loops back around into being difficult for me to articulate. Just how self absorbed do you have to be to get hit with a stray bullet and go "wow the entire firing squad is actually targeting ME!" it's maddening. Like I definitely didn't have my current knowledge regarding intercommunity issues and transness in general when that experience happened, but I remember thinking. "Wow. That was really fucked up and scary. What if he had been right? Would every day be like this if I actually was a trans woman?" As soon as somebody knows what I actually am, that scrutiny goes away. I do not have to lie about a core part of myself to get those people off my ass. Not everybody gets that reprieve. And then I see years of tme people trying to claim that transmisogyny hurts EVERYONE, actually, while steamrolling the actual targets. It's just like guys who only bring up men's mental health when a feminist gets too upset about something. None of these people would write an essay about how straight people are actively oppressed by homophobia because other straight people accuse them of being gay and that it's the gays who somehow wield fruit powers to oppress the straights, actually. Because that's fucking stupid. But apparently it's impossible to extend that type of common sense to trans women.

[closet-keys]

if you are part of a community space where there are no trans girls, and you recognize that as an issue, the next step is not "find trans girls and convince them to join."

The next step is consistently and actively confronting transmisogynist language, behavior, and views within that community space, and taking a role in sitting down and talking with other TME people about transfeminism.

if your space is filled with constant unchallenged transmisogyny and made up of TME people who have no practice with (or interest in) unlearning these views when confronted with them, then inviting trans women there doesn't make the space better, it makes those trans girls' lives worse.

[rasairui]

Idk I just have no patience for trans men/masculine people who refuse to acknowledge transmisogyny. Like. The worst experience I ever had with transphobia was when I was mistaken for a trans women. In a culinary program, I was cutting bell peppers, and one of the other students, a really big dude in a student leadership position, walks in and accusatory goes "so are you trying to be a woman, or something?" And I'm like. Well I'm trying to small dice these peppers. And I tell him I'm not a she and he says something to the effect of "Yeah I know that much." He makes some comment abt how whatever I'm doing doesn't make sense and he doesn't get it and when I tell him he doesn't have to, that he just has to respect it, he says "I don't have to do shit!" And gets real mad! Like actual threats mad! Tells me he could bash my skull in and to meet him outside for a fight and yeah it was fucking scary! The entire interaction I'm reminding myself that I'm the one currently holding a knife, if he tries anything.

Fast forward a few days later and my period is kicking my ass. Just absolutely destroying me. I'm in the dish pit, and I am visibly struggling, I'm nauseous, I'm in pain and bracing myself against walls. I'm not walking straight. And the same student leadership guy who was so aggressive with me when he thought I was transfem?

He tells me I look like I'm going to pass out. He says it's obvious I'm in pain, I shouldn't be in class, I can go sit down and if nobody can replace me he'll do the dishes himself.

Like. Do you get it yet. It's not just that he felt comfortable openly threatening me in a room full of other people when he thought I was a trans woman. It's that he did a complete 180 and was not only willing to support me, but actually pick up my slack once he knew I wasn't "that kind" of transgender. As soon as one of our classmates confirmed to him that I wasn't the wrong type of trans person I suddenly became someone who actually deserved care and compassion in his eyes. The "bigots think we're all the same and hate all of is equally" rhetoric isn't fucking true. It's just peddled to deny the privilege we have over other members of our community so it's easier to ignore how inhospitable supposedly trans-centric spaces are for TMA people.

[worldspiritultra]

next time a cishet man talks about how he feels oppressed or like ppl are saying he's evil, explain the trans-to-prison pipeline and v-coding to him.

[worldspiritultra]

I wanna get more specific with this. According to some studies, 1 in 3 trans people have experienced workplace discrimination. And nearly 1 in 5 trans people have experienced housing discrimination. As a result of this and family rejection, nearly 2 out of 5 trans women have experienced homelessness. As a result of this, at least 1 in 4 trans women have done sex work (although some studies go as high as 3 in 4). As a result of this, 1 in 5 trans women have reported being incarcerated at some point. Incarcerated trans women experience v-coding:

This is not something that "representation" and saying "trans women are women" will solve.

[thanatos-girl]

Seeing a lot of trans faux-progressives talking about breaking the law (in relation to diy hrt) like it will instantly end your life and you will never get away with it, and its very irritating to me because if you have read some queer history you know people have lived long, fulfilling lives outside the bounds of the law in our community since we started banding together. It was at one point just outright illegal to even be gay or trans in public and yet we held rallies and shows and events and we still went to the bars and we demanded our dignity. Do not let the law strip you of what you consider important, especially if it's transition

[dankmemeuniversity]

[such-justice-wow]

[raaviel-lives]

[elvensilk]

stop making fun of bad people for being fat or having small dicks or being socially awkward or whatever else you seem to think is a fair target. none of that shit has anything to do with why theyre bad. i don’t care if a nazi has a stutter or a terf has thinning hair or whatever. at best youre missing the point, at worst your comments are gonna hurt vulnerable people more than they will ever affect the shitty person you’re mocking. why are you so attached to these bullshit standards anyway?

[jiskblr]

[raginrayguns]

OP is addressed to the people doing it, but im reblogging for the bystanders: reminder that these people aren’t on your side just because they say bad things about bad people, and disagreeing with them doesn’t mean you’re siding with bad people

[fatphobiabusters]

[para-sike]

There is a second part to bodyshaming that I feel also needs drawing attention to, so I made a slight addition to the picture:

the problem with body shaming isn’t just calling certain traits ugly. The problem is that you associate, or reinforce associations, of morality to these traits.

Making fun of a rich person for being fat isn’t just wrong because you shouldn’t be calling fat people ugly. It’s wrong because it’s reinforcing stereotypes about fat people being gluttonous, associating fatness with being exploitative and cruel.

This is coincidentally also why any body positivity movement focusing on broadening the category of “beautiful/normal” fails because being considered beautiful isn’t the fucking point, it’s that you should be treated with dignity regardless of your physical appearance, disability, etc. That these traits are morally neutral.

There’s a long tradition of associating “ugliness” with evil and we’re not gonna reach any kind of liberation as long as we participate in that.

[schlarklezyaoi]

we have GOT to kill tiktok/twitter self-censorship i just witnessed a grown adult say the word “smex” out loud to our professor

[schlarklezyaoi]

my poor professor was SO confused that she asked them to repeat themselves and they went “you know, like, blank . . .” and kept just vaguely gesturing until she somehow connected the dots. i fucking hate art school

[schlarklezyaoi]

god i wish i was making the shit i witness at this place up. my life would be so much easier if i didn’t have to deal with my classmates seriously arguing about fandom discourse in the group project chat

[schlarklezyaoi]

the price you think you're paying by going to art school: tuition, supply costs, etc

the price you're actually paying by going to art school: having to put up with the most brain-rotting terminally online discourse imaginable in real life

[prince-of-the-moths-deactivated]

I had someone argue with me that it was problematic for me to have watched Frozen with my niece because I was encouraging her to become an emotionally abuse codependent sibling. I'm a senior and I've had someone else doing their senior thesis ask, genuinely, if she was problematic for doing her thesis on domestic abuse, because sometimes domestic abuse effects rich white women and they're privileged, so therefore her doing it on that is racism apologism. I've had to sit there and watch people say "unalive", "SA", "PDF file", and my favorite, "marital relations" (it only happened once but it's really funny) to professors who look at them in total despair.

Hamlet didn't unalive himself, he killed himself. Our Crime Prevention class is discussing sexual assault and pedophiles. The implication of this paper we're reading in Intro To Africana Studies is not about white settlers marrying and having gentle loving monogamous funtimes with slaves, it's about rape.

I genuinely do not see how I'm supposed to take the people around me seriously. How am I supposed to believe you have incredible insights into something you can't bring yourself to say? How am I supposed to look over your rough draft and not cross out the euphemisms and write grown-up words?

And I DO NOT go to art school! I go to Montana State! I'm in redneck country - remember when redneck meant tough enough to at least say words?! Not anymore!

[sew-birb]

Do you know how stupid I feel that I couldn't figure out that "PDF File" was supposed to be censorship slang for "paedophile"

[plaguedoctormemes]

I should chime in and say that if this sort of thing pisses you off you *need* to be vocal about it. Because, short term and short-sighted, this is just people being overly sensitive about plain language and carrying online habits to real life which is “cringe” and “annoying” or whatever.

But long term, this type of shit is what contributes to erasure and historic inaccuracy in the first place. And its the same mentality that allows people to think that censorship, thought policing and book-banning is okay.

Please don’t let corporations and social media companies’ affinity for ad revenue and web sanitation condition you into thinking that plain honesty, communication and reality is something that can be sugar-coated and dressed up into something easier to swallow. This shit is much more dangerous than you think. If you are talking to someone in real life and you catch them talking like this, you NEED to remind them, “Hey this isnt TikTok. You can say exactly what you mean. What are you afraid of?”