The repeal of Roe v Wade is absolutely horrifying and now more than ever, transmascs NEED to be advocating for ourselves. We are not unintended victims in an attack on women, transmasculine people will be disproportionately effected and harmed by a restriction of abortion rights and this is deliberate.
The harm against trans men is often described as erasure and while I believe that's accurate, it doesn't do a proper job at conveying the violence we face as a result. I want to take the time to spell out how dangerous things are for transmascs are right now.
If you didn't already know, when a trans man becomes pregnant, and he wants to carry the baby to term, he must go off of testosterone for the duration of the pregnancy. Effectively he must "detransition" for a period of time. For many, the mere concept of pregnancy is horribly dysphoric, they may have plans to get a hysterectomy in the future. For others, having to go off T is a major deterrent even if having children isn't necessarily. And still some who want to get pregnant when the time is right and return back to taking T afterwards.
All these options for trans men are cut off with the repeal of Roe v Wade. If a trans man in the first category finds himself pregnant it is incredibly likely he will resort to risky measures to terminate the pregnancy. Or he could consider something more permanent, over half of all transmasculine people have attempted suicide at least once in their lives and that was with Roe v Wade in place.
(I highly encourage all transmasculine people to connect with your local queer community for support. Mutual aide and organization is the name of the game right now and there are people who want to and WILL help you.)
Even under normal circumstances, trans men's access to reproductive health care is sketchy. It is not at all uncommon for trans men to be turned away from gynecologists or have doctors refuse to treat them because they pass too well or have legally changed their sex to male. This significantly raises the risk of complications during pregnancy and is why trans men who decide to get pregnant go through extensive planning and preparation.
But for transmasculine people in any category, a pregnancy now means a forced detransition. Birth control is on the chopping block next and it feels as though the walls are closing in. Abstinence? The rates of lifetime sexual assault for transmasculine people is over 50%, the highest in the queer community. The practice of corrective rape as a form of conversion therapy for queer people has been well documented and is also on the table for legalization.
The rhetoric around trans men in the anti-trans legislation push leading up to this should not be ignored. The idea that we are sacrificing our sacred female fertility by transitioning. That trans ideology will carve up and rip apart the bodies of young innocent girls. This is language specifically targeted against trans men, we shouldn't have ignored it then and we should not ignore it now.
This is our erasure. The erasure of our existence: corrective rape, detransitioning, suicide. The erasure of transmascs has never been cute or accidental or just patronizing. It has always been this bloody and violent, and I hope people can wake up to that now. Because god we need support, and I personally won't be shutting up until we get it.
