The reduction of trans men to mere concepts
There's a chicken-and-egg scenario involved in transmasculinity these days:
Which came first, the violent erasure of transmasculine people from society and history, even trans society and history- or the reduction of transmascs to ideas instead of people?
Whichever happened first, they're both in an endless cycle right now. Trans men are erased and rendered hyperinvisible. Then, trans men are too invisible to speak up for themselves when they're erased further. As a result, no one listens to trans men when they try to speak for their actual experiences.
As a result, trans men are no longer a demographic with lived experiences and stories: they are ideas. They can be anything depending on the needs of the non-transmasculine speaker.
One example of this was touched on in this essay regarding the problematic portrayal of MPreg, where MPreg is celebrated not because it validates pregnant men as men, but because pregnancy is portrayed as something that inherently causes a man to become submissive (feminist), and it's doubly feminist when the one who impregnated him is a woman because that means a man submitted to a woman.
In particular, I want to draw attention to this paragraph:
And yes, I said the idea of a man in a feminine position is inherently feminist to them, NOT the man himself. The feminine position he is in makes him an object to be viewed and discussed, not a subject with thoughts and beliefs. The pregnant man is not a feminist, he's a feminist concept. That, I think, is the core of the problem with mpreg jokes - to people who make them, a pregnant man is an idea, a symbol, a fictional situation, instead of a real human being. They ignore the existance of actual men that can get pregnant in favour of the idea of them, because the first one has agency, and the second one has no agency (because he exists in their head). To people like that, pregnant men = blorbos jokingly impregnated by defying biology, or blorbos in omegaverse AUs, not the living, breathing trans and intersex men. They imagine pregnant men for many reasons: as a sexual fantasy, to make a joke, to declaw and tame them, but never to actually consider what it's like for real life men with uteruses. Pregnancy is just another situation they can put their blorbos in, not a real thing some men go through. So there's no space in their minds for the discrimination we face in gynecological and prenatal care, or the fear of being forcibly impregnated as a way to detransition us. Pregnant men are theoretical to them, just like catboys, so they get annoyed when we remind them that we exist and shoo us away claiming they're not talking about us.
While this quote is in the context of MPreg, I think it very much applies to wider discussions around transmasculinity. Detransitioning or "forcefemming" a trans man, for example, is very popular on this site, both as a sexual fetish/fantasy and as a genuine desire. And objections to this are met with, inevitably, the same protest that the world doesn't need more men, it needs more women, and further, masculinity is inevitably rewarded.
Transmasculine input stating otherwise is not welcomed, because this isn't about transmasculine people as people; it's about transmasculine people as concepts. And in this environment, it is a fact that the most feminist thing a concept of a transmasculine person can be is become a real, feminine person instead. His life would be of more worth as a miserable cis woman, because as a trans man, he is a mere concept.
Stating that one's masculinity has not been rewarded is not a feminist action, because it assigns agency to what is supposed to be a mere idea- the person "gifted" womanhood who threw it all away.
Trans men being concepts, not people, is also why trans men are never discussed as transgender men. They might be trans if they are facing an issue that harms the entire trans community (after all, this concept being attacked could lead to harm being done to REAL people!) but otherwise they are just men. And just men are, unless being put in their place via sexual humiliation (pregnancy, forcefem, pegging, etc) not feminist ideas, so the best thing for them would be to be rewritten as properly feminist concepts. So, there is no use in discussions about the ways in which transmasculine experiences diverge from cismasculine ones, because right now, the trans community online has little use for delineation of two interchangeable concepts. At least cis men have a chance on the order of a few percent of realizing their identity as women- real people- down the line.
It's seen as meaningless, and maybe even disingenuous, to draw a line between transmasculine and cismasculine experiences, because the difference between two flavors of not-women who have failed to be Feminist Concepts is meaningless.
Further, as mere concepts, transmasculine men are perfect targets for projection. Trans men can be "basically cis women" when it makes them look bad and less transfeminist; they can be mentally ill girls and theyfabs and cunts and bitches to undermine their identity. Remember, this is a feminist action, because humiliating a man, especially to a woman, is a good feminist concept. And when needed, trans men, being identical to cis men, are dangerous; they're threats, they're the ones committing the rapes and abuse and hate crimes against trans women, they're the ones passing (or wanting to pass) laws banning HRT for trans women (even though it's T, not E, that is currently a controlled substance). Because men are men, there is no use distinguishing between them, and the voice of trans men, as a mere concept and not a real people, is not welcome.
(In fact, one could also argue that trans women are being reduced to concepts in the opposite direction; it's just that because they are seen as properly feminist concepts, they are allowed to offer their own lived experiences, solely conditionally because it is of benefit at that time. A trans woman with a lived experience that contradicts a certain feminist point of view quickly finds herself reduced such that her existence is bad for feminism. If she discloses rape or abuse by a trans woman, or allyship with the idea of trans men, she too has her personhood stripped away, and she is now an antifeminist concept.)
And since trans men are now mere feminist concepts, this makes it easier to further the violent erasure of them. Trans men can't have existed historically; those were cis women who were trying to escape misogyny. Because, you see, it is a much better feminist idea to be a cis woman fighting patriarchy than to be a man fighting patriarchy, if you even consider trans men (who are, of course, identical to cis men) as capable of fighting the patriarchy. Trans men are the less-feminist idea, so they can't be allowed to exist. Alan Hart, Lou Alcott- none of them can be allowed to maintain their identity as trans men because they have more value as cis women, and they aren't people, but concepts.
And since trans men didn't exist historically, because they were all cis women, that means trans men are newcomers to the queer community. Thus, any demands to be heard, to be allowed epistemological authority over their own experiences, is entitlement; they can't demand a space that was never theirs respect their input equally to the real people who were there from the start, after all. They need to be quiet, shut up, wait their turn (which will never come) because they are, after all, men whose voices have never been absent; that's why they dominate history. Because trans men are cis men, and history is full of cis men. Historical trans men, or prominent modern trans men in queer spaces, are antifeminist concepts.
Historical erasure is a tool to strip trans men of personhood and reduce them to mere ideas, which in turn lets them be erased from the present- tomorrow's history. It's a cycle we must break free from.
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