Modus Ponens @modusponendoponens - Tumblr Blog

"we're all faggots in the eyes of the state!" "we all have it just as bad!"

ok. wage gap

source

like. come on now

trans mennnn pspspsps understand your relative privilege over your transfem sisters and use it to support and uplift us instead of pretending not to have the structural leverage necessary to harm us. ooooo you know you want to build queer solidarity

rambling-rosee

This post is important. Many hiring offices subconsciously or consciously prefer masculinity over femininity and trans men are often seen as more acceptable than trans women. Trans women, especially TWOC, are often seen as unacceptable, perverted or dangerous (which is some fucking bullshit) and this leads to some of the highest levels of discrimination against a minority group.

However, I checked out the source, and there should be a caveat that this source and statistics are exclusive to the United States so it’s important that people apply their findings to the United States (and probably other Western countries) and not to countries where people assigned female at birth have fewer OR ZERO rights and are paid less or refused employment entirely, regardless of their gender identity*.

Obviously, in countries with these laws, being transfem, gay, and/or GNC is usually incredibly dangerous as well, and having to suppress who you are is a form of oppression that leads to trauma and possibly suicide. Queer people are all oppressed more than a cishet man would be.

But children who are presumed male will be taught to read, write, and have more freedom of movement, employment and marriage, which are privileges not afforded to their presumed-female counterparts. The latter are usually MUCH more trapped in their circumstances.

Even if a child who was AFAB grows up and realizes he is a binary trans man, he may live in a society that would penalize any attempt at transitioning, negating all “male privilege” he might have been able to obtain if he lived in a more LGBTQ+ friendly place.

TL;DR: This post is a good PSA for transmisogyny in the USA, but arguing that trans men have privilege over trans women in all cases doesn’t factor in worldwide oppression based on assigned sex.

*sometimes even places that restrict women’s rights allow trans men to transition, but that phenomenon isn’t widespread

modusponendoponens

This argument applies the transphobic framework of “sex-based oppression” and goalpost shifting to deny the global effect of transmisogyny on the relative pay rates of trans men and trans women.

First, the point of such a study is to transform something colloquially known (women are paid less than men; being trans doesn’t change this) into scientific knowledge (citable, grounded in research). It is no counterargument to point out that the study was done with USA data. You reject the conclusion that trans women are paid less than trans men globally because you haven’t the data for the rest of the world? Do you likewise reject studies linking cigarettes with cancer globally because they weren’t done by the same group using the same parameters during the same lunar phase written in the same coloured ink as the study done in the USA? Transmisogyny does not end at the USA border, nor does it exist only in western countries. It is nonsensical to deny global transmisogyny on the grounds that the right study wasn’t linked, particularly when you are predisposed to deny the results of any study that purports to give you just the evidence for which you ask.

Second, for people to discriminate based on assigned gender at birth, they would have to know their target’s assigned gender at birth. Assigned gender at birth is not something that is knowable in most contexts. The people doing the I discriminating are instead discriminating on things that are knowable and are readily visible, namely visual clues like dress, comportment, and presence or absence of secondary sex characteristics. It is epistemically irresponsible to disbelieve the relative privilege trans men have over trans women in global pay rates. Trans women are not spared misogyny because they were assigned male at birth; trans men are not barred from male privilege because they were assigned female at birth.

#bad argument

alchemillaatnight

actually as a woman I still think misandry makes you an unpleasant person and if you’re just out there saying shit like “all men should die” or “men’s mental health doesn’t matter” then you’re the type of person I want nothing to do with. also this is not what feminism is about btw, you’re not being a strong girl boss with this ideology, you’re just a bully

zombiemollusk

remember:

-the idea that women are less capable of abuse than men is an extension of the idea that women are weaker than men.

-the refusal to acknowledge men's mental health and emotions as valid things worthy of support comes from the idea that emotions are inherently feminine in nature and having them is, again, a sign of weakness.

-the treatment of men as generic and expendable and women as special contributes to the idea that women should have less representation because we already "have enough" and "don't need more" and we gotta "even the playing field" or some dumb shit, so any need or want for more attention, regardless of reason, is attributed to "pointless attention-seeking".

-all of this puts trans men in an even more uncomfortable position, because either they're made an exception (because they ~aren't really men~ you see) or they're viewed as self-hating misogynists because why else would you "choose" to be the Trash Gender (tm)?

all of these seemingly pro-women anti-men sentiments stem from beliefs produced and enforced by toxic masculinity; as such, misandry is often really just misogyny in disguise.

zombiemollusk

adding more onto this:

-the idea that men are inherently terrible only serves to excuse men for being terrible. because, hey, they can't help it, so why bother trying, right? part of holding men accountable for their awful actions is believing they can in fact be better.

-the reason "not all men" is so frustrating to hear is because it's often used in poor faith to derail much needed conversations about toxic masculinity and how it manifests, not because the phrase itself is untrue.

-continuing from the trans men thing, misandry can and does make it harder for trans men to come out, for fear of the aforementioned responses.

-yes, misandry can stem from trauma at the hands of a man. that's understandable, but trauma can reinforce a lot of prejudices, and we all have a responsibility to understand how we come to believe things and mind ourselves accordingly. that doesn't mean you need to hang around men all the time, nor does it mean you're wrong to feel the way you do about what men did to you - it just means recognizing the objective line between fact and feelings, and recognizing that you don't need to conflate the two to validate your feelings. "i am uncomfortable around men because of past experiences shared by a lot of women" is different from "men are all horrible irredeemable pieces of shit and need to die".

modusponendoponens

Misandry, structural oppression of men on the basis of their being men, does not exist. Merely disliking men or being mean to men is not misandry. The characterization of even strong distaste for men with a structural oppression of men, as does unironic use of “misandry,” trivializes the oppression of women under misogyny.

Responding to zombiemollusk’s points, in the order in which they appear:

1. Agreed. However, as is remarked, “misandry is often really just misogyny in disguise.” That is, there is no actual misandry, despite what the poster says.

2. Agreed. Notably, when men’s mental health and emotions are poor, it’s most often their female partners who have to deal with the consequences, not other men.

3. It’s hard to tell what the point is here. Are men the default human, receiving near universal portrayal in fiction and nearly universally having their perspective centred, and therefore require no more representation (and asking for more is pointless attention seeking)? Or is it that women are treated as special, so special in fact that the very little representation that they or their perspectives receive is perfectly sufficient and we should get back to the really important stories, which, for some reason, happen to centre men?

4. There is a third option, which is that trans men are no less capable of misogyny than cis men. It’s entirely possible for someone to not be transphobic while expressing distaste for men. It is not contradictory or “self-hatred” for trans men to be misogynists; the argument to the contrary is fundamentally transphobic.

5. Agreed. Men are not inherently vicious or evil. They choose misogyny because it benefits them. They choose to treat women poorly but they could choose otherwise.

6. To the degree that men sometimes choose not to leverage structural misogyny, we are agreed. However, this is not the norm.

7. A nonexistant structural axis of oppression, “misandry,” is not a greater demotivating force than extant material structural axes of oppression, namely transphobia and misogyny.

8. One need not have suffered acutely at the hands of a particular man to find the near universal perpetuation of misogyny by men abhorrent. One need not have personally suffered domestic violence to worry about the prospect of partnering with a man, knowing he would be protected if he became abusive. One need not have personally been followed home at night to fear for one’s safety when a man gets off the bus at the same stop. The fact is that men choose to be dangerous to women because they are protected from consequences. Expressions of frustration at this fact are not “misandry.”

doe-eyed-disaster

it's exhausting to see constant TMA/TME discourse that fundamentally does not understand intersectionality. Transmisogyny affected, TMA, describes someone who cannot leverage your assigned gender to mitigate the oppressive force of transmisogyny. Transmisogyny exempt, TME, describes someone who is able to leverage their assigned gender in some way to mitigate the oppressive force of transmisogyny. They are not identity labels; they describe a person's relationship to transmisogyny.

doe-eyed-disaster

these labels also do not categorize people as ontologically "victims" or "oppressors". everyone, including TMA people, can wield transmisogyny and everyone can wield it most effectively against TMA people. just as cis women can perpetrate and enforce misogyny against other cis women, so too can trans women leverage transmisogyny against one another. however, given the relative lower social status of TMA people, we are less able to advance their own social standing by leveraging transmisogyny. Caitlin Jenner is both TMA and openly transmisogynistic, but she is less successful in advancing herself compared to TME people like Marjorie Taylor Green. this is similar to how cis women can wield misogyny against men (like suggesting that an fashionable man is inherently less masculine), but a similar criticism from another man will generally be a more potent attack.

doe-eyed-disaster

oppressions can look similar: racialized women, particularly black women, are often degendered in ways which superficially resemble transmisogyny. for example, Michelle Obama was mocked for having supposedly "mannish" features. to the extent that transmisogyny might have impacted her, she was able to mitigate it by leveraging the fact that she was assigned and conformed to expectations of women. she was unable to leverage her race to deny the full extent of this public abuse because degendering is a tactic empowered by both racism and transmisogyny. a black trans woman who is similarly degendered cannot leverage TME privilege because of her gender assignment at birth. both people are targeted and harmed in some way by degendering, but one is more able to mitigate that harm due to being able to exempt herself from transmisogyny.

in a similar example, Imane Khelif was subject to simultaneous pressure from transmisogyny, racism, and intersexism. because she is TME, she could leverage her gender assignment and was not barred automatically from competing in women's events at the summer Olympics (an option unavailable to TMA athletes facing similar scrutiny). she also enjoyed an outpouring of public support in favor of her continued participation, whereas TMA athletes received little sympathy or support in the press (in fact, the event that prohibited them was hailed as especially inclusive for lgbtq+ athletes). however, she was still pressured sufficiently by racist and intersexist policies to undergo invasive medical procedures and to publicly reveal medical details that she might have preferred to keep private. the fact that Imane Khelif was subject to other systems of oppression in no way disproves the validity of transmisogyny because she was able to do the thing that defines being TME: she leveraged her assigned gender to exempt herself from transmisogyny.

doe-eyed-disaster

in Kimberlé Crenshaw's formulation of intersectionality, she describes the unique marginalization of black women. unlike white women, black women cannot leverage their race to mitigate the impacts of racism. unlike black men, black women cannot leverage their gender to mitigate the effects of misogyny. thus, black women are demonstrably subject to a unique synergy of white supremacy and misogyny (misogynoir) from which others are able to exempt themselves to varying degrees and by various means. the same formulation can be applied to TMA people, who are unable to leverage either their gender assignment or social identity, to mitigate oppositional and traditional sexism, thereby rendering us uniquely vulnerable to the synergistic oppression of those forces. (and of course, we cannot forget that TMA people can also be subject to other discrimination from which they cannot exempt themselves; TMA people can also be variously racialized, disabled, poor, intersex, and so on.)

doe-eyed-disaster

great tags from @futchlingg

doe-eyed-disaster

I'm glad the tone i struck was accessible to you. I'm going to continue to be very generous right now: this response is transmisogyny. one of the kinds of privilege that TME people experience is getting to be judged as individuals whereas TMA people are always judged collectively. TMA people should not have to be as precise, nonjudgmental, and even in tone as i was in this thread. i chose to put in the effort to explain things in these terms, but i did so because when TMA people like me aren't, we get taken with the worst possible faith.

if a cis woman wrote a post like mine about the ways in which men leverage misogyny against her, it would be obviously misogynistic for someone to reply "oh thank goodness. i never really got feminism because they're always just so bitchy about men". this would be the case regardless of who said it or what their proximity to misogyny is. the same is true here: i made a long post with very precisely chosen language, and this reply contrasts me against all those other, apparently uncouth trans women who don't haven't decency to be nice about our oppression. (if you know trans women like that, please send them my way. they sound based.).

TMA people do not owe any deference to TME people's feelings when talking about our oppression. y'all can get away with shit on the regular, usually against us, that is far crueler than incivility. TMA people shouldn't have to make posts that are hundreds of carefully chosen words long with step-by-step logical constructions from first principles and real-world illustrations whose relevance is spelled out on exacting detail. this was a high effort post and WE DON'T OWE THAT TO ANYONE. we shouldn't have to do that every time we want to talk about the fucked up things that happen to and around us, especially not to TME people who benefit from doing those fucked up things to us.

(and if you think my reply here is veering into incivility, let me invite you to examine why it is that you're feeling so defensive. let's internalize and practice those analytical skills which i described apparently so well in those first canonically non-bitchy posts.)

doe-eyed-disaster

a common (and exhausting) misconception seems to happen around the word "exempt". let's be clear: transmisogyny isn't just "misogyny that happens to trans women". transmisogyny is a social force which influences *all* people which posits that differently gendered people are intrinsically different in some meaningful way and that one gender is in some way socially superior to another. the ways that we construct, define, inscribe, navigate, and relate to gender are all influenced by transmisogyny. if getting to wield misogyny without consequence is the carrot of patriarchy, then the threat of faggotization for being too great a failure to one's assigned boyhood is the stick. I've seen transmisogyny described as the psychological lynchpin that holds patriarchy together. some people can leverage their gender in some way to mitigate the impact of this force, but it is a fundamental part very sea that we all must swim in.

the same can be said for other marginalizing forces. temporarily nondisabled people can experience negative consequences of ableism, but feeling burnt out from an excessive workload is a fundamentally different experience when not fully exposed to ableism. for instance, you might have your exhaustion taken more seriously by your doctor if you are not yet disabled and consequently receive better medical care. a straight man might be mistreated if others believe him to be gay, but he's dealing with one moment of interpersonal bigotry rather than an entire lifetime of being under threat (for example, his right to the social and financial benefits of marriage are far more guaranteed than they might be if he was gay). and so on.

TME people experience transmisogyny but they are not its primary targets and can exempt themselves from scrutiny and mistreatment by leveraging their gender in some way that TMA people cannot. one pernicious way that this happens is through a kind of affected incompetence, positioning themselves to always be seeking education from TMA people about transmisogyny and offering shallow rebuttals and critiques such as the images attached (which they may not even consciously recognize as such). this positions TMA people as bearing the expectation of answering and clarifying on demand and being held to account for all the other TMA people who have come before her.

like i just spent nearly a thousand words giving the piss easiest "intersectionality 101" and you're complaining that the language is unclear or flawed in some way that precludes your understanding or prevents you from internalizing what you've just read, complaints which would be irrelevant if you just read the first paragraph again in which the terms were defined in clear, simple language. if this is your response, you are exactly who i was complaining about from the beginning.

#good argument

masterofdoublade

Every time you say "all men should die" you are unfortunately including closeted trans women, and no, people should NOT have to come out just to avoid being killed. You are transphobic both ways if you think all men should die, because you CANNOT tell who is and isn't in the closet, unless they come OUT of the closet.

modusponendoponens

The argument in this post cloaks transmisogyny in progressive language. It goes:

(1) Closeted trans women are men.

(2) The statement “all men should die” is an actionable threat to men.

(3) Therefore, the statement “all men should die” is an actionable threat to trans women.

In the first place, (1) is simply transmisogyny. A woman’s pretending to be a man does not make her one any more than pretending to be a regent gives one legal power. Trans women are women, and are so, whatever the degree to which they are in the closet.

Furthermore, men can and sometimes do safely verbally agree with hyperbolic anti-male propositions because (2) is simply false. “All men should die” carries with it no actual threat of violence. Even if the people who said this were genuine, men are not at risk of death simply because a small number of people believe they should be. There is good reason to believe that most people don’t hold this belief, namely that there is no serious initiative in any part of the world to kill men. Most people employing hyperbolic language do so to express feelings, rather than to present an actionable plan.

The point of OP’s argument is not to protect trans women—I would question the allyship of anyone calling trans women men—but to convince people who say “all men should die” that they are harming women by doing so. It is not transphobic to express frustration with men using hyperbolic language, especially when this language is disconnected from material reality. Not all trans people are men, and not all men are trans.The identification of trans women as men is transphobic, and the exaggeration of the threat of “all men should die,” is misogynistic.

masterofdoublade

no. The point was that you can't just TELL who is and isn't trans. Trans women who have yet to figure out they are trans will be SEEN as men. And by saying 'all men should die', it would just make trans women who haven't discovered their trans identity feel bad for being born men. I did not once refer to trans women as men, I specifically said that trans women who are not aware they are trans, or are in the closet for their safety in a transphobic society, will be seen as men and FORCED to out themselves just so these sorts of people won't hurt them for the sex they were born with.

Also, I'm transfem, this is a fucking gross ass take to make out of my post. I understand hating the patriarchal idea of a man, but I still think it's a fucking gross take to say that all men should die. The take forces trans people to out themselves, and given how hypervisible trans women are, it is NOT something you should say that would force trans women in the closet to out themselves just to 'prove' they're a good person. Not to mention, you are including trans men in the idea that all men should die, and whether or not you actually want to go through with that statement, you are actively telling a chunk of our community that they are not wanted.

The only bad faith take here is yours, for acting as if I've told all my trans sisters they're actually men just because I care about the safety of those who are in the closet to protect themselves.

modusponendoponens

In a society which treats two classes as mutually exclusive and as having differing inherent worths, such as patriarchal society which treats men and women as mutually exclusive classes with women treated as subordinate to men, a common refrain from the subordinate class is that some tragedy ought befall members of the the dominant class. Due to the dominance relation, such expressions are, as a rule, materially impotent. A woman saying “all men should die” has no more effect on the material wellbeing of men, as individuals or as a class, than her commenting on the weather. These expressions are so materially impotent that it is trivial for members of the dominant class to verbally agree; they are not threatened by them. In fact, it has been observed that, for example, a man who recognizes the prevalence of bad behaviour in the vast majority of men will agree or remain silent in the face of these expressions since he understands them not to apply to him personally. With this in mind, I consider the two classes of trans woman you have mentioned.

First, the closeted trans woman: a trans woman who knows she is a woman but who is hiding this from some number of other people. You argue that she is put at risk by people saying “all men should die.” There are three reasons she is not. The first is that, once again, no actual threat of violence accompanies this expression; nobody is at risk of harm for its utterance. The second is that a fortiori, she knows she is a woman; she knows that the statement does not refer to her. Third, if she feels compelled to reply but does not want to alert the people around her that she is trans, then she can reply in the same way as men do currently, some variation on “yeah, men sure suck.” She needn’t even necessarily lie.

The second class of trans woman is the person who has not realized she is a trans woman, or would prefer to be a woman, or would be happier or more fulfilled, etc., in short: the egg. Depending on how you understand the ontology of egghood, there are different rebuttals one could present to the assertion that “all men should die” harms eggs. The most important of which is that, once again, no material harm is threatened because the expression does not carry with it a threat of actual violence. Furthermore, the same options for deflection are available as before. For both closeted trans women and eggs, utterances of “all men should die” presents no material threat.

However, your reply does raise a point I thought not worth mentioning before. There is harm done by the expression to people’s feelings. Men, and people who think they are men, may feel sad that some people over whom they wield social power are saying mean things about them. It can be hard to acknowledge that one has the capacity to harm; it can be hard to come to grips with one’s dominant position in a power differential, particularly when the dominant position is characterized by the subordinate class as evil or inherently harmful. Nevertheless, the threat of violence to the subordinate group at the hands the dominant group is of a much different character. Hurt feelings are not similar to the material harm facing women from people who believe themselves to be men. Eggs, who characteristically believe themselves to be men, once again have the same options available to them as men do, which includes simply not taking offence.

Trans women are not the targets of “all men should die,” regardless of their stage of transition. Trans women are not harmed by “all men should die.” Even men, the targets of “all men should die,” are not materially harmed. When you tell people of a subordinate class that their materially impotent expressions of frustration against the dominant class are unacceptable, you are running cover for precisely the members of the dominant group about whom those expressions are made. The argument that “all men should die” affects trans women, implies that trans women are men.

masterofdoublade

I am sick of your 'but have you considered you actually hate waffles' type response to my 'I like pancakes' point. I did not say trans women were men. I have expressed that, even if it's a statement held in sentiment rather than an actual threat, it STILL doesn't account for several types of men, and trans women who are in the closet or have yet to come out, who will be SEEN as men and therefore be put into a situation where they come out just for these people who hate them otherwise, or stay in the closet and remain subject to this statement.

It does not matter that they are not the target. The point was that it unfortunately includes closeted and yet to identify trans women because those two will be seen as men. By society at large. A very TRANSPHOBIC society, at that. You can double down and keep taking my explaining in bad faith, but it does not change that I am clearly talking about the social harm "all men should die" and "kill all men" cause to literally everyone.

I know pericishet white abled men are the target of that. But no one take into account that "all men" MEANS all men. And unfortunately, 'all men' only includes trans women in the closet or yet to realize their trans identity BECAUSE they are seen as men even when they are not. Its not just a sentiment about men, it's about who you see as men, and you cannot just tell if someone is trans without them being out of the closet.

What I'm trying to say, is that anti-men thinking, even if it never amounts to anything physical, is still harmful because these people don't stop to question if a man is disabled, not white, intersex, trans, straight, or any combination of the above. They care about seeing a man (even where there isn't one) and including them in their anti-men hate. That's why this harms trans women, and now that I'm on this topic, any trans women can be affected by this, because people who hate men will absolutely misgender trans women and force them to be a man just to include them as a target.

I know trans women are women. It would be stupid as HELL for me, a transfem, to not recognize that. But as someone who also experiences the hurt of "kill all men/all men should die" because I'm also transmasc, it does cause harm, and you cannot act like it isn't violent in nature. Being ostracized from the queer community because so many members are anti-masculine and exorsexist means I have less resources than others. Being seen as a man by the people who tout anti-men thinking means I am repeatedly subject to having my transfem identity torn away from me, and being forced to try and 'prove' I'm a good person just to get an ounce of respect from people who wouldn't be shitty to me if I was only transfem.

But yes...it totally doesn't actually cause harm, and I totally think trans women are men...(HEAVY sarcasm)

modusponendoponens

It’s strange to have my arguments repeatedly characterized as being in bad faith by someone ignoring their substance entirely.

This dialogue began with the assertion that trans women are being forced to out themselves or else risk being killed, which has never happened in response to “all men should die”. If we lived in a society in which a closeted trans woman’s life would be spared by coming out, we would have little reason to be worried about the transphobia.

I repeat that the targets of “all men should die,” that is, men, have the option of not caring. Even in your scenario where a trans woman is indistinguishable from a man, she, too, has the option of simply agreeing. We do not live in a world in which roving gangs of feminists patrol the streets killing any man they find unless he reveals himself to have been a trans woman all along. In the actual world trans women are misgendered to hurt and dehumanize them, not because people really believe they are men; trans women are certainly not treated as men by the people who call them men.

Furthermore, as you note, “all men” means all men. All men benefit from patriarchy. All men wield social power over women, not just pericishet white abled men. A trans man wields social power over a trans woman. A black man wields social power over a black woman. A disabled man wields social power over a disabled woman. A gay man wields social power over a lesbian woman. All women are oppressed by men. Which is to say, even trans women can express strong sentiments about men, including trans men. Your argument implies that a trans woman who says that all men should die is thereby committing an act of self harm. I find the proposition absurd.

masterofdoublade

My final reblog before I just ignore you entirely. Throughout my posts, you have repeatedly told me my arguments are in bad faith because to you, I am somehow equating trans women to men. But that is not at all implied in my post, or any others. If anything, I have repeatedly explained to you that there are people who will see trans women as men for any reason, and that anti-men rhetoric only serves to misgender and harm trans women.

And when I then add that I know for a fact the sentiment is harmful, and even explain to you very small examples of how, you still ignore what I've said to continue this idea that I hold the transmisogynistic belief that trans women are men, and that I'm somehow blowing an entire way of thinking out of proportion. You keep talking about how I must possibly see trans women as men to discredit my arguments, but not once has anything you said even matched the topic of my posts. You cannot even fathom that the reason I brought up "kill all men" and "all men should die" is not because trans women are men, but because there's a multitude of reasons it would be addressed at a trans woman solely because someone refuses to gender her correctly.

I am done with this nothing argument. You have wasted far too much time trying to tell me things I both know, and know to be false. Anti-men sentiment is harmful, not just because it harms literally everyone, but it ends up being misogynistic once you unpack the thinking. Men = bad, women = good. Anti-men thinking only furthers gender and bioessentialism, and creates this idea that men and women MUST be separate because there is no possible way to be equal. Women are fragile, men are dangerous. Women are helpless, men are unfeeling and violent. Do you get it? How do trans women grow up, but having to unlearn the masculinity forced onto them by society? Everyone gets hurt, but this way of thinking will HARM trans women, because we live in a transphobic society that refuses to treat women as people, and trans people as people.

Not to mention there are several trans women and transfems that would disagree with your notion that anti-men thinking is not harmful. If you want trans women to be safe in society, you have to allow men to exist and help them unlearn misogyny and patriarchal values, so that any trans women who are eggs or are in the closet won't be so afraid for their safety. Because if we see women and men as equal, then we can allow trans people to be seen as equal just as well.

modusponendoponens

I have not once said anything about your beliefs; those are unknowable to me. What I can know is the content of your argument, which groups trans women with men as victims of man-hatred. In my replies, I argue that nobody is harmed by “all men should die,” principally because the people who express this sentiment do not have the power to enact it. I’m at the same time being asked to accept the proposition that trans women have their lives threatened by people who hate men because they believe trans women to be men, ignoring the fact that men’s lives are not threatened this way while trans women’s lives are threatened in many other unrelated ways. If someone is threatening a trans woman’s life, it is not because they believe her to be a man.

In your most recent reply, however, you something very interesting.

“Anti-men sentiment is harmful [because] it ends up being misogynistic.”

This is an old misogynist canard. “Hating men is the real misogyny” is a common refrain to attempt to convince feminists to be nicer to men—that is, to stop criticizing them—because at the end of the day it only hurts themselves. Of course, any feminist sentiment at all is then typically spun into man-hating. But couching this in anti-essentialist language is insidious; once again, you have expressed misogynist propositions in progressive language. There is no contradiction between my position and rejecting essentialism.

It’s not bioessentialist or gender essentialist to identify the material incentives men have under patriarchy to abuse women. I agree that men aren’t evil or bad just for being men; men’s material conditions simply make it easy, profitable, and consequence-free to treat women poorly. As with any dominant group, it takes concerted desire and effort to not abuse the societal power differential one wields over subordinate classes. This effort is discouraged so most men don’t make it. Most men end up acting misogynistically, even when they believe themselves to be feminists. Men simply choose to be misogynists.

You further write “[i]f you want trans women to be safe in society, you have to allow men to exist and help them unlearn misogyny and patriarchal values,” which further shifts the blame for men’s bad behaviour onto women. If only women were nicer to men, they would see that it’s not good to be misogynists. If only men were allowed to exist in society, men would stop abusing and killing trans women. Of course, men do exist in society; many women are nice to them. You can walk outside and see men everywhere going about their business; some men even seem happy. This does not stop them from harming women. Women saying things men don’t like has never been the reason for misogyny. It just lets men off the hook for their own bad behaviour.

If you are not a misogynist, it behooves you to investigate why you are repeating their greatest hits.

masterofdoublade

Every time you say "all men should die" you are unfortunately including closeted trans women, and no, people should NOT have to come out just to avoid being killed. You are transphobic both ways if you think all men should die, because you CANNOT tell who is and isn't in the closet, unless they come OUT of the closet.

modusponendoponens

The argument in this post cloaks transmisogyny in progressive language. It goes:

(1) Closeted trans women are men.

(2) The statement “all men should die” is an actionable threat to men.

(3) Therefore, the statement “all men should die” is an actionable threat to trans women.

In the first place, (1) is simply transmisogyny. A woman’s pretending to be a man does not make her one any more than pretending to be a regent gives one legal power. Trans women are women, and are so, whatever the degree to which they are in the closet.

Furthermore, men can and sometimes do safely verbally agree with hyperbolic anti-male propositions because (2) is simply false. “All men should die” carries with it no actual threat of violence. Even if the people who said this were genuine, men are not at risk of death simply because a small number of people believe they should be. There is good reason to believe that most people don’t hold this belief, namely that there is no serious initiative in any part of the world to kill men. Most people employing hyperbolic language do so to express feelings, rather than to present an actionable plan.

The point of OP’s argument is not to protect trans women—I would question the allyship of anyone calling trans women men—but to convince people who say “all men should die” that they are harming women by doing so. It is not transphobic to express frustration with men using hyperbolic language, especially when this language is disconnected from material reality. Not all trans people are men, and not all men are trans.The identification of trans women as men is transphobic, and the exaggeration of the threat of “all men should die,” is misogynistic.

masterofdoublade

no. The point was that you can't just TELL who is and isn't trans. Trans women who have yet to figure out they are trans will be SEEN as men. And by saying 'all men should die', it would just make trans women who haven't discovered their trans identity feel bad for being born men. I did not once refer to trans women as men, I specifically said that trans women who are not aware they are trans, or are in the closet for their safety in a transphobic society, will be seen as men and FORCED to out themselves just so these sorts of people won't hurt them for the sex they were born with.

Also, I'm transfem, this is a fucking gross ass take to make out of my post. I understand hating the patriarchal idea of a man, but I still think it's a fucking gross take to say that all men should die. The take forces trans people to out themselves, and given how hypervisible trans women are, it is NOT something you should say that would force trans women in the closet to out themselves just to 'prove' they're a good person. Not to mention, you are including trans men in the idea that all men should die, and whether or not you actually want to go through with that statement, you are actively telling a chunk of our community that they are not wanted.

The only bad faith take here is yours, for acting as if I've told all my trans sisters they're actually men just because I care about the safety of those who are in the closet to protect themselves.

modusponendoponens

In a society which treats two classes as mutually exclusive and as having differing inherent worths, such as patriarchal society which treats men and women as mutually exclusive classes with women treated as subordinate to men, a common refrain from the subordinate class is that some tragedy ought befall members of the the dominant class. Due to the dominance relation, such expressions are, as a rule, materially impotent. A woman saying “all men should die” has no more effect on the material wellbeing of men, as individuals or as a class, than her commenting on the weather. These expressions are so materially impotent that it is trivial for members of the dominant class to verbally agree; they are not threatened by them. In fact, it has been observed that, for example, a man who recognizes the prevalence of bad behaviour in the vast majority of men will agree or remain silent in the face of these expressions since he understands them not to apply to him personally. With this in mind, I consider the two classes of trans woman you have mentioned.

First, the closeted trans woman: a trans woman who knows she is a woman but who is hiding this from some number of other people. You argue that she is put at risk by people saying “all men should die.” There are three reasons she is not. The first is that, once again, no actual threat of violence accompanies this expression; nobody is at risk of harm for its utterance. The second is that a fortiori, she knows she is a woman; she knows that the statement does not refer to her. Third, if she feels compelled to reply but does not want to alert the people around her that she is trans, then she can reply in the same way as men do currently, some variation on “yeah, men sure suck.” She needn’t even necessarily lie.

The second class of trans woman is the person who has not realized she is a trans woman, or would prefer to be a woman, or would be happier or more fulfilled, etc., in short: the egg. Depending on how you understand the ontology of egghood, there are different rebuttals one could present to the assertion that “all men should die” harms eggs. The most important of which is that, once again, no material harm is threatened because the expression does not carry with it a threat of actual violence. Furthermore, the same options for deflection are available as before. For both closeted trans women and eggs, utterances of “all men should die” presents no material threat.

However, your reply does raise a point I thought not worth mentioning before. There is harm done by the expression to people’s feelings. Men, and people who think they are men, may feel sad that some people over whom they wield social power are saying mean things about them. It can be hard to acknowledge that one has the capacity to harm; it can be hard to come to grips with one’s dominant position in a power differential, particularly when the dominant position is characterized by the subordinate class as evil or inherently harmful. Nevertheless, the threat of violence to the subordinate group at the hands the dominant group is of a much different character. Hurt feelings are not similar to the material harm facing women from people who believe themselves to be men. Eggs, who characteristically believe themselves to be men, once again have the same options available to them as men do, which includes simply not taking offence.

Trans women are not the targets of “all men should die,” regardless of their stage of transition. Trans women are not harmed by “all men should die.” Even men, the targets of “all men should die,” are not materially harmed. When you tell people of a subordinate class that their materially impotent expressions of frustration against the dominant class are unacceptable, you are running cover for precisely the members of the dominant group about whom those expressions are made. The argument that “all men should die” affects trans women, implies that trans women are men.

masterofdoublade

I am sick of your 'but have you considered you actually hate waffles' type response to my 'I like pancakes' point. I did not say trans women were men. I have expressed that, even if it's a statement held in sentiment rather than an actual threat, it STILL doesn't account for several types of men, and trans women who are in the closet or have yet to come out, who will be SEEN as men and therefore be put into a situation where they come out just for these people who hate them otherwise, or stay in the closet and remain subject to this statement.

It does not matter that they are not the target. The point was that it unfortunately includes closeted and yet to identify trans women because those two will be seen as men. By society at large. A very TRANSPHOBIC society, at that. You can double down and keep taking my explaining in bad faith, but it does not change that I am clearly talking about the social harm "all men should die" and "kill all men" cause to literally everyone.

I know pericishet white abled men are the target of that. But no one take into account that "all men" MEANS all men. And unfortunately, 'all men' only includes trans women in the closet or yet to realize their trans identity BECAUSE they are seen as men even when they are not. Its not just a sentiment about men, it's about who you see as men, and you cannot just tell if someone is trans without them being out of the closet.

What I'm trying to say, is that anti-men thinking, even if it never amounts to anything physical, is still harmful because these people don't stop to question if a man is disabled, not white, intersex, trans, straight, or any combination of the above. They care about seeing a man (even where there isn't one) and including them in their anti-men hate. That's why this harms trans women, and now that I'm on this topic, any trans women can be affected by this, because people who hate men will absolutely misgender trans women and force them to be a man just to include them as a target.

I know trans women are women. It would be stupid as HELL for me, a transfem, to not recognize that. But as someone who also experiences the hurt of "kill all men/all men should die" because I'm also transmasc, it does cause harm, and you cannot act like it isn't violent in nature. Being ostracized from the queer community because so many members are anti-masculine and exorsexist means I have less resources than others. Being seen as a man by the people who tout anti-men thinking means I am repeatedly subject to having my transfem identity torn away from me, and being forced to try and 'prove' I'm a good person just to get an ounce of respect from people who wouldn't be shitty to me if I was only transfem.

But yes...it totally doesn't actually cause harm, and I totally think trans women are men...(HEAVY sarcasm)

modusponendoponens

It’s strange to have my arguments repeatedly characterized as being in bad faith by someone ignoring their substance entirely.

This dialogue began with the assertion that trans women are being forced to out themselves or else risk being killed, which has never happened in response to “all men should die”. If we lived in a society in which a closeted trans woman’s life would be spared by coming out, we would have little reason to be worried about the transphobia.

I repeat that the targets of “all men should die,” that is, men, have the option of not caring. Even in your scenario where a trans woman is indistinguishable from a man, she, too, has the option of simply agreeing. We do not live in a world in which roving gangs of feminists patrol the streets killing any man they find unless he reveals himself to have been a trans woman all along. In the actual world trans women are misgendered to hurt and dehumanize them, not because people really believe they are men; trans women are certainly not treated as men by the people who call them men.

Furthermore, as you note, “all men” means all men. All men benefit from patriarchy. All men wield social power over women, not just pericishet white abled men. A trans man wields social power over a trans woman. A black man wields social power over a black woman. A disabled man wields social power over a disabled woman. A gay man wields social power over a lesbian woman. All women are oppressed by men. Which is to say, even trans women can express strong sentiments about men, including trans men. Your argument implies that a trans woman who says that all men should die is thereby committing an act of self harm. I find the proposition absurd.

masterofdoublade

Every time you say "all men should die" you are unfortunately including closeted trans women, and no, people should NOT have to come out just to avoid being killed. You are transphobic both ways if you think all men should die, because you CANNOT tell who is and isn't in the closet, unless they come OUT of the closet.

modusponendoponens

The argument in this post cloaks transmisogyny in progressive language. It goes:

(1) Closeted trans women are men.

(2) The statement “all men should die” is an actionable threat to men.

(3) Therefore, the statement “all men should die” is an actionable threat to trans women.

In the first place, (1) is simply transmisogyny. A woman’s pretending to be a man does not make her one any more than pretending to be a regent gives one legal power. Trans women are women, and are so, whatever the degree to which they are in the closet.

Furthermore, men can and sometimes do safely verbally agree with hyperbolic anti-male propositions because (2) is simply false. “All men should die” carries with it no actual threat of violence. Even if the people who said this were genuine, men are not at risk of death simply because a small number of people believe they should be. There is good reason to believe that most people don’t hold this belief, namely that there is no serious initiative in any part of the world to kill men. Most people employing hyperbolic language do so to express feelings, rather than to present an actionable plan.

The point of OP’s argument is not to protect trans women—I would question the allyship of anyone calling trans women men—but to convince people who say “all men should die” that they are harming women by doing so. It is not transphobic to express frustration with men using hyperbolic language, especially when this language is disconnected from material reality. Not all trans people are men, and not all men are trans.The identification of trans women as men is transphobic, and the exaggeration of the threat of “all men should die,” is misogynistic.

masterofdoublade

no. The point was that you can't just TELL who is and isn't trans. Trans women who have yet to figure out they are trans will be SEEN as men. And by saying 'all men should die', it would just make trans women who haven't discovered their trans identity feel bad for being born men. I did not once refer to trans women as men, I specifically said that trans women who are not aware they are trans, or are in the closet for their safety in a transphobic society, will be seen as men and FORCED to out themselves just so these sorts of people won't hurt them for the sex they were born with.

Also, I'm transfem, this is a fucking gross ass take to make out of my post. I understand hating the patriarchal idea of a man, but I still think it's a fucking gross take to say that all men should die. The take forces trans people to out themselves, and given how hypervisible trans women are, it is NOT something you should say that would force trans women in the closet to out themselves just to 'prove' they're a good person. Not to mention, you are including trans men in the idea that all men should die, and whether or not you actually want to go through with that statement, you are actively telling a chunk of our community that they are not wanted.

The only bad faith take here is yours, for acting as if I've told all my trans sisters they're actually men just because I care about the safety of those who are in the closet to protect themselves.

modusponendoponens

In a society which treats two classes as mutually exclusive and as having differing inherent worths, such as patriarchal society which treats men and women as mutually exclusive classes with women treated as subordinate to men, a common refrain from the subordinate class is that some tragedy ought befall members of the the dominant class. Due to the dominance relation, such expressions are, as a rule, materially impotent. A woman saying “all men should die” has no more effect on the material wellbeing of men, as individuals or as a class, than her commenting on the weather. These expressions are so materially impotent that it is trivial for members of the dominant class to verbally agree; they are not threatened by them. In fact, it has been observed that, for example, a man who recognizes the prevalence of bad behaviour in the vast majority of men will agree or remain silent in the face of these expressions since he understands them not to apply to him personally. With this in mind, I consider the two classes of trans woman you have mentioned.

First, the closeted trans woman: a trans woman who knows she is a woman but who is hiding this from some number of other people. You argue that she is put at risk by people saying “all men should die.” There are three reasons she is not. The first is that, once again, no actual threat of violence accompanies this expression; nobody is at risk of harm for its utterance. The second is that a fortiori, she knows she is a woman; she knows that the statement does not refer to her. Third, if she feels compelled to reply but does not want to alert the people around her that she is trans, then she can reply in the same way as men do currently, some variation on “yeah, men sure suck.” She needn’t even necessarily lie.

The second class of trans woman is the person who has not realized she is a trans woman, or would prefer to be a woman, or would be happier or more fulfilled, etc., in short: the egg. Depending on how you understand the ontology of egghood, there are different rebuttals one could present to the assertion that “all men should die” harms eggs. The most important of which is that, once again, no material harm is threatened because the expression does not carry with it a threat of actual violence. Furthermore, the same options for deflection are available as before. For both closeted trans women and eggs, utterances of “all men should die” presents no material threat.

However, your reply does raise a point I thought not worth mentioning before. There is harm done by the expression to people’s feelings. Men, and people who think they are men, may feel sad that some people over whom they wield social power are saying mean things about them. It can be hard to acknowledge that one has the capacity to harm; it can be hard to come to grips with one’s dominant position in a power differential, particularly when the dominant position is characterized by the subordinate class as evil or inherently harmful. Nevertheless, the threat of violence to the subordinate group at the hands the dominant group is of a much different character. Hurt feelings are not similar to the material harm facing women from people who believe themselves to be men. Eggs, who characteristically believe themselves to be men, once again have the same options available to them as men do, which includes simply not taking offence.

Trans women are not the targets of “all men should die,” regardless of their stage of transition. Trans women are not harmed by “all men should die.” Even men, the targets of “all men should die,” are not materially harmed. When you tell people of a subordinate class that their materially impotent expressions of frustration against the dominant class are unacceptable, you are running cover for precisely the members of the dominant group about whom those expressions are made. The argument that “all men should die” affects trans women, implies that trans women are men.

#I do not personally think that literally all men should literally die #but my opinion on this is immaterial #it’s also not impossible for someone from a subordinate class to ally with the dominant class #nobody is inherently immune to taking actions or holding positions against their self-interest

masterofdoublade

Every time you say "all men should die" you are unfortunately including closeted trans women, and no, people should NOT have to come out just to avoid being killed. You are transphobic both ways if you think all men should die, because you CANNOT tell who is and isn't in the closet, unless they come OUT of the closet.

modusponendoponens

The argument in this post cloaks transmisogyny in progressive language. It goes:

(1) Closeted trans women are men.

(2) The statement “all men should die” is an actionable threat to men.

(3) Therefore, the statement “all men should die” is an actionable threat to trans women.

In the first place, (1) is simply transmisogyny. A woman’s pretending to be a man does not make her one any more than pretending to be a regent gives one legal power. Trans women are women, and are so, whatever the degree to which they are in the closet.

Furthermore, men can and sometimes do safely verbally agree with hyperbolic anti-male propositions because (2) is simply false. “All men should die” carries with it no actual threat of violence. Even if the people who said this were genuine, men are not at risk of death simply because a small number of people believe they should be. There is good reason to believe that most people don’t hold this belief, namely that there is no serious initiative in any part of the world to kill men. Most people employing hyperbolic language do so to express feelings, rather than to present an actionable plan.

The point of OP’s argument is not to protect trans women—I would question the allyship of anyone calling trans women men—but to convince people who say “all men should die” that they are harming women by doing so. It is not transphobic to express frustration with men using hyperbolic language, especially when this language is disconnected from material reality. Not all trans people are men, and not all men are trans.The identification of trans women as men is transphobic, and the exaggeration of the threat of “all men should die,” is misogynistic.

#bad argument #false premises #modus ponens

autistichalsin

The direct links between:

Trans men being seen as "undesirable, unfuckable women" after transitioning

Trans men being one of the demographics of the LGBT community at highest risk of rape

Trans men being targets of forced detransition via corrective rape and forced pregnancy

People denying both that this increased risk of rape and forced detransition even exists, and instead attributing it to trans men being "TERFs in waiting"

People insisting that trans men being seen as unfuckable women and/or mentally ill girls protects them from systemic violence and therefore makes them less worthy of protection

would be funny if it wasn't fucking terrifying. When you deny the reality of transandrophobia- when you claim that trans men are lucky to "only" be seen as "ugly mentally ill girls"- you are enabling societal violence against trans men.

modusponendoponens

This is a good example of an argument in which features of the transgender experience are listed, that is, harms that apply to both trans men and trans women, but where only trans men are mentioned and the post cites these as effects of transandrophobia. The harms of being seen as unfuckable women (if seen as women at all), high risk of rape, including corrective rape, and forced detransition apply to both demographics. Meanwhile the denial of these harms by transphobes and subsequent assertion that they do not affect trans men are also levied at trans women who are discursively recast as men benefitting from patriarchy.

The original poster engages in denial that trans women are affected by these things in their omission of these facts from the post and the attribution of the same to transandrophobia, rather than the more apt and more general transphobia.

The failure at the heart of transandrophobia as a theory is that it is exclusionary of trans women despite many of the supposed harms of transandrophobia facing them as well. To argue against this one must either assert that trans women are men and so face transandrophobia as described above (an unserious position) or that transandrophobia is a separate axis of oppression from transphobia, despite being constituted of the same harms and the former being a derivation of the latter plus misandry. Given that misandry is an axis along which there is no oppression in patriarchal society, the latter position amounts to the creation of a theoretical framework whose only purpose is to exclude women from the analysis, as appears to be the case in the above post.

Transandrophobia theory is, at its core, an anti feminist framework.

#bad argument

sluglover666

It's very telling that radfems chose the concept 'misogyblanc' as a parallel to the concept of transandrophobia, instead of a much more obvious comparison to anti Black masculinity.

Obviously BOTH of those comparisons would be flawed because 1. race and gender identity are not comparable (most notably you can transition from being percieved as one gender to being percieved as another, and you can't do that with race); 2. they frame Blackness as some fantasy concept to be used as a synonym for the word 'oppressed', as if actual Black people didn't exist and weren't the ACTUAL Black people of the queer community.

But 'misogyblanc' was picked because it's obviously a reactionary term meant to imply that white women somehow experience 'anti-white racism' from people of colour, and a clumsy copy of 'misogynoir' born out of a 'but what about me' mindset. And in contrast it's commonly understood that racism against Black men is diffrent from racism against Black women and that the fear and mistrust of masculinity plays a huge role in the way Black men are treated. Which is exactly why they didn't pick this term.

This comparison is especially insidious because 1. it frames whiteness as the default in the queer community by assuming that every person talking about transandrophobia as a real concept must be white; 2. THE TERM 'TRANSANDROPHOBIA' WAS COINED BY A TRANS MAN OF COLOUR

transfem-intersectionality-bot

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersectionality

sluglover666

Yes, my post is about intersectionality. It's about people's identities intersecting with eachother to create something different than the sum of their parts. Even when one of those parts is not an oppressed identity in and of itself.

A Black woman will experience both racism and misogyny, but she will also experience misogynoir, a unique blend of misogyny and anti-Black racism (e.g. 'Black women have huge sexual apetites and will seduce white men if they find an opportunity')

White women will experience misogyny but will not experience anti-white racism, because it does not exist. And they will not experience a unique kind of misogyny that affects only white women, because white women are seen as the 'default women' by the mainstream society. A Black man will have access to some parts of male privilege, and will experience racism. But he will also experience a unique form of oppression that stems both from society's beliefs about men ('Men are more aggressive and dangerous than women') and anti-Black racism (e.g. 'Black people are aggresive and unpredictable') - which is Black misandry ('Black men are uniquely aggressive and dangerous and they should be treated like wild animals').

Trans people are unique when it comes to gender as an axis of oppression, because we are not seen as our actual gender by the majority of the society - we are seen as either our socially imposed gender or as dangerous gender-bendy freaks of unspecified sex. All trans people will experience transphobia, and depending on their gender identitiy, socially imposed genders, wether they're intersex or perisex, and their transition choices and progress, can experience misogyny, androphobia (a fear and mistrust of men e.g. due to their 'innate' aggression or voracious sexual appetite), transmisogyny and transandrophobia. One trans person can experience ALL of those forms of oppression, either in different points of their life, or consistently.

modusponendoponens

In the context of intersectionality, your analysis of anti black-masculinity versus misogyblanc as apt (or, per your argument, inapt) comparison with transandrophobia displays a key misunderstanding of what precisely makes transandrophobia similar to both. Your restatement or intersectionality theory as “It's about people's identities intersecting with eachother to create something different than the sum of their parts. Even when one of those parts is not an oppressed identity in and of itself” is a misreading of Crenshaw’s work. Identities are not oppressed, people are.

In the first place, it is entirely possible for someone to be perceived as one race at one point in their life and another race later. Peoples self-conception of race can also be fluid, particularly at the boundaries, and not all radicalized people are Black. Race, like gender, is a socially enforced regime rather than natural. Your second point against the comparison between transandrophobia and anti Black-masculinity takes an altogether non-argumentative form, asserting the motives of your interlocutors rather than arguing the merits of your position.

Meanwhile, your argument about misogyblanc amounts to speculating on your interlocutors’ motives rather than anything substantive. You simply assert that the differences between the ways in which Black men and women are treated are (1) commonly understood and (2) a result of “fear and mistrust of masculinity.” First, the differences between racialized men and women is at issue here so I don’t agree that you can assume it away under the guise of “common understanding,” which is argumentatively impotent. Second, and most important for my overall argument, the reason men are distrusted by women is that men hold social power over them. The basic feminist position is that there are two classes under the gendered hierarchy: men and everyone else. Marginalized people who are men are still marginalized, but they also hold social power over people who are not.

When a man and woman share all positionality except for gender, due to the patriarchal social hierarchy, the man can exercise social power over the woman. The woman is sociologically vulnerable, her material conditions are such that she can be harmed in ways that are encouraged and rewarded for the one doing the harm. This does not come down to fear and mistrust of masculinity. Masculinity qua aesthetic has nothing to do with it. Men hold social power over women and are rewarded for using that power. To be in a position of having social power wielded against oneself is to be oppressed. Men are not innate oppressors and women are not innate victims; men are not abusive simply by nature of their manhood. Men and women are in an adversarial relationship under patriarchy due to the power imbalance inherent to the regime.

To make it explicit, trans men hold social power over similarly situated trans women. It is not androphobia to point out that, under patriarchy, trans men are encouraged to abuse that social power and are rewarded for doing so. In order to argue that trans men do not hold and benefit from this social power, you must take the transphobic stance that trans men are not men.

This argument is parallel to the one against anti Black-masculinity. Black men, and men of colour generally, are men. Men hold social power over women. Therefore black men hold social power over black women. Black men are not oppressors because there is something innately abusive about manhood. Black men occupy a positionality that encourages, excuses, and rewards abuse of their social power.

This argument is also parallel to the argument against misogyblanc. White people hold social power over people of colour. Similarly situated white and black people are in an adversarial relationship under the regime of white supremacy. White people are not inherent abusers. White people are encouraged, excused, and rewarded for exercising their social power over people of colour. White women hold this power over Black women. It is not misogyblanc to point this out.

#bad argument #ad hominem #surely argument

Sex based oppression exists, literally between cis men cis women trans men trans women who is affected by abortion bans? Its people who can get pregnant who are female. Male privilege is having a body better studied and understood and not abused based on a vulnerable biological state related to reproduction.

This argument makes the mistake of considering the class of “female” coextensive with the class of “people affected by abortion bans.”

The class of “people affected by abortion bans is” “people who can get pregnant,” not “female.” Trans men are affected, if they are affected, because they can get pregnant; if they can no longer get pregnant, then they are no longer affected. Cis women are affected, if they are affected, because they can get pregnant; if they can no longer get pregnant, then they are no longer affected. Trans women are not affected because they cannot get pregnant, a common point of consternation. In all cases, what makes an abortion ban dangerous is not being “female” but the ability to become pregnant.

This argument is also transphobic.

A framework which classes trans men as female and trans women as non-female is blatantly transphobic. Trans women are mentally (that is, subjectively) female; to the extent that they are out as women, they are socially female; to the extent that they take hormones they are hormonally female; if you consider having a vulva to be the marker of biological femaleness, then when trans women receive vaginoplasty they are biologically female. Likewise for trans men vis-a-vis maleness.

“Sex based oppression” is little more than a dog whistle indicating allegiance to the oppositionally sexist idea that men and women are fundamentally and irreconcilably different, and (therefore) transition is a fantasy and trans women are fundamentally men and trans men are fundamentally women.

#bad argument

ghost-eses

Righttt trans men are class traitors for transitioning, and if they want to be good people they should simply be girls!

modusponendoponens

You seem to have misread this post and substituted some of the words here for ones that make the original poster look foolish. This is typically considered a strawman argument.

The relevant sentence is “If you want to stop being part of [reifying patriarchy], just become a class traitor.” Firem4ge is not arguing that trans men are class traitors for transitioning. She is arguing that if you want not to take part in, take advantage of, enjoy the privileges of, patriarchy, your only choice is to become a traitor to the class of men.

Trans men are men. Men benefit from patriarchy. Therefore trans men benefit from patriarchy. One way to mitigate the negative impact of patriarchy within your sphere of influence is to deliberately take action to not benefit from it.

#bad argument #strawman

jamjarblues

“the word transandrophobia implies that cis men are oppressed for being men and also that trans women don’t suffer oppression” yeah buddy and the word mosquito implies the existence of a larger, more powerful insect named el mosco. do you have any other fantastic insights for us

modusponendoponens

This is an argument by analogy. At base, it goes:

1. The words “mosquito” and “transandrophobia” are similar.

2. The word “mosquito” is useful despite having unserious linguistic implications.

3. Therefore “transandrophobia” is also useful despite having unserious linguistic implications.

Arguments by analogy work when the relevant features of the two cases are similar, such that things which apply in one case can be expected to apply in the other. It is not a form of valid argument, but can be useful for rhetorical purposes such as illustration (good faith) or misleading (bad faith).

The difference between the words “mosquito” and “transandrophobia” is that the former is the name of an object, useful just in case there is something referred to by it. The latter is a portmanteau of “transphobia,” oppression of transgender people on the basis of their transgender status, and “androphobia,” oppression of men on the basis of their being men. The usefulness of “transandrophobia” is related directly to the existence of both transphobia and androphobia. To argue for the existence of androphobia one must take up a fundamentally antifeminist position, that men suffer oppression on the basis of their being men (distinct from other axes of oppression, such as transgender status). Because cisgender men are men, they would be affected by oppression against men. But they do not; no such oppression exists.

The two are not analogous. This is a bad argument.

#bad argument

strawhatsufi

That’s a very astute observation — and honestly, I think you’re right. Tumblr (and online discourse generally) is rife with what you might call semantic literalism — people reacting to the surface meaning of a statement without parsing the pragmatic layer: what’s being implied, who’s saying it, under what conditions, and to whom.

Let’s unpack why that happens.

1. Online text strips away pragmatic cues

Pragmatics depends on context, and context is precisely what the internet destroys. Tone, gesture, shared history, physical space — all gone.

So:

“Wow, that’s great.”

Semantically positive, pragmatically could be sincere, sarcastic, weary, or angry. Tumblr’s flattened medium means that readers default to literal or personally salient interpretations, often without realising they’re making pragmatic inferences at all.

2. Pragmatic competence is mostly implicit

Most people use pragmatics intuitively but have never been taught about it. They know what “Can you not?” means in context, but can’t articulate that it’s a directive speech act built on a negative politeness strategy implying displeasure rather than a genuine question about ability.

So when a writer uses irony, ellipsis, or indirect speech, many readers can’t consciously track that the intended meaning diverges from the semantic one — they just see “what was said,” not “what was meant.”

3. Tumblr’s discourse norms reward semantic absolutism

The platform evolved around reblog chains and quote commentary, which structurally encourage:

cherry-picking phrases out of context,

attaching moral judgments to sentences rather than arguments,

and treating every utterance as if it were a literal policy statement.

Combine that with activist or identity-based discourse, where moral clarity is prized over interpretive nuance, and the result is a culture where semantic reading = moral reading. If you meant something else, you’re accused of “backpedaling” — even though in pragmatic terms, you were just relying on implicature or register.

4. Pragmatics explains the “reading comprehension crisis”

Many “misreadings” aren’t comprehension failures at all — they’re pragmatic mismatches:

Someone writes hyperbolically (“I would die for that cat”), and another reads it semantically (accusing them of melodrama or insensitivity).

Someone uses understatement (“that’s… not great”), and another interprets it literally as mild rather than severe criticism.

Someone uses a register suited to close friends, but it’s broadcast publicly, and strangers apply a different pragmatic frame.

These aren’t about intelligence — they’re about unshared pragmatic frames.

5. The meta irony

Tumblr actually thrives on pragmatics — the whole culture of tags-as-asides, tone indicators (/j, /srs), and image-text juxtapositions are ad hoc pragmatic compensations. They’re users trying to re-create the lost layer of context that face-to-face speech naturally provides.

If we put it concisely:

Semantics tells you what’s said. Pragmatics tells you what’s meant. Tumblr hears the first and argues about the second, without realising the difference.

Would you like me to give a few concrete Tumblr-style examples showing how the same sentence can trigger totally different readings depending on pragmatic frame?

findme-at1am

I'm including the rebloggers as I'll block as many people as possible IDC.

"a fully intentional one" good 😊 because tme and tma aren't accurate descriptors of a person's experiences when even cis men deal with misogyny. Intersex people should be considered and shouldn't be "strawman" arguments because they're real people. You know what one of many examples of strawman arguments are? Vagueing about some poor trans woman to make your post seem better.

And someone fear mongering about the loosening of definitions? Where have I heard this before oh yeah with ace discourse, bi vs pan discourse, but especially lesbian definition discourse to EXCLUDE TRANS WOMEN/FEMS. Quit rehashing shit against the newest fucking scapegoat of the year.

"Egg jokes are problematic" wow transmen found ways to relate to your experience through your jokes despite the screenshot I'm sure oop seen being shared of someone intentionally trying to exclude transmen! Oh God,,,, oh no ,,,,, poor you........,,,,,,,

Also transmen use this dichotomy too, and I hope they also get fucked or see the light. ✌️

modusponendoponens

What a strawman argument is: reconstructing your interlocutors argument in a way that makes it easier to attack.

What a strawman argument isn’t: introducing a theoretical person into your argument to make your point stronger.

An example of strawman argument would be: “OP is saying that cis men experience misogyny. Hee is saying that cis men are women, which is ridiculous.”

It is often discursively useful to invent scenarios for the sake of argument. Pumping intuitions about a theoretical situation (or one which is simply not ready at hand) can illustrate better than an argument on its own.

Arguments about definitional integrity are rhetorically undermined when the person making them fails to correctly identify logical fallacies.

#the only thing resembling pronouns in OPs bio implies that Hee is the correct one to use

indigosfindings

the "chat is a pronoun" discourse is captivating to me because it goes so far beyond ordinary misinformation

like imagine if suddenly there was a wave of posts saying that Dogs Are Birds, like "omg you guys i just realized dogs are actually birds!!!" and any time anybody said "theyre mammals, not birds" dozens of people would get super defensive about it and make snide condescending posts/comments like "KNOWLEDGE is knowing that dogs arent birds, WISDOM is knowing that taxonomy is fake and all organisms are whatever you want them to be forever, peace and love on planet earth," and they would keep posting about how Dogs Are Totally Birds because "well dogs are majestic and have beautiful voices, like birds" and if you pointed out that those qualities are immeasurable (& have nothing to do with being a bird) and that metric could categorize most animals (& several things that arent animals) as 'birds' they would call you a gatekeeping elitist and say "let people enjoy things" or some thesaurused equivalent, and maybe someone would also say "we're just having a Laff, it's just a fun game dont be so Serious" but they (and a non-insignificant number of other people) otherwise speak as if they believe with conviction that Dogs Really Are Birds, and this is Really Big & Exciting News because Dogs Are The First 4-Legged Bird, and then when people who know biology made posts explaining in-depth what taxonomy is & why dogs arent birds theyd start getting asks like "what about cats, are cats birds??" "are hamsters birds?" "what about sharks??" "i think flies are birds because they have wings." and then imagine this all persisted for more than half a year

shabbytigers

1. linguistics is in fact clear that chat isn’t a pronoun

2. it can be interesting and seductive to think about the things we know at a deeply entrenched, axiomatic premise level from a new and different angle

3. op, can you think of anything that might cause people to get super interested in how category structures such as those of linguistics — which are developed by humans as tools for thinking clearly and updated regularly as their thinking develops; they are not evolved by nature or some such god figure for purposes of its own, and they are not immutable realities like the laws of physics prior to the existence of conscious beings trying imperfectly to formulate them — actually work, and in what sense and to what degree they may in fact be mutable and contingent and should be subject to updating as we come to understand the world differently

4. there’s nothing inaccurate in this post, to be clear, but. like. maybe one hazard of a good, wholesome robust immune reaction against misinformation is going a bit too hard, falling into essentialism, and over-reifying the actual science/facts in question? certainly we see this happen in several other domains that get culturally ‘hot’ in our times

indigosfindings

ok lets take this one bite at a time

"it can be interesting and seductive to think about the things we know (...) from a new and different angle"

i mean, sure? but that's not what's happening in the discourse this post is about. during the boom of 'chat is a pronoun' posts a couple years back, the headlining statement was never 'i would like to volunteer a new framework for conceptualizing grammar', it was 'chat is a pronoun, and it is a new type of pronoun, and our existing comprehension of english grammar is fully compatible with this new revelation'

"[the category structures] of linguistics (...) are developed by humans as tools (...) they are not immutable realities (...) they [are] mutable and contingent..."

i am aware that language is definitionally not prediscursive. money, labour, culture, cuisine, art, & philosophy are all also things that humans invented: this does not prevent them from having observable patterns & structures, nor does it negate the existence of misinformation about these subjects

"...and should be subject to updating as we see the world differently"

variations on this sentiment are quite common in the 'chat is a pronoun' discourse--ie, 'our existing comprehension of grammar & language is in need of updating'. the thing is, nobody ever seems to get specific about it. i completely agree that science should be updated in accordance with new information & values, but like--what is the new information here? what are we now seeing differently about the world that has outmoded the definition of 'pronoun'? what is the new definition of 'pronoun', & why is it more useful to conceptualize pronouns via this new model? frankly, this is 'tail wags dog'. 'i am wrong about this, therefore the science must be outdated' appeals to what is ultimately a solipsistic mode of thinking. the pyramids were build by aliens, therefore our comprehension of history & architecture is wrong. 2+2=5, so maybe the meaning of 'plus' is in need of an update

"maybe one hazard of a (...) robust immune reaction against misinformation is going a bit too hard, falling into essentialism"

'pronoun' is a descriptive category, & the usage of 'chat' by twitch streamers & people imitating twitch streamers does not fall within that description. i dont see what's essentialist about that.

"over-reifying the actual science/facts in question"

??????????

"there's nothing inaccurate in this post"

this is the thing that really gets me about this reply. you acknowledge that my position is correct, but you seem to think it's wrong for me to voice it, even in so anodyne a fashion as a shitpost musing about how strange the whole situation is. what are we even doing here

shabbytigers

I literally don’t disagree with you on any of this, it’s just that getting upset about it doesn’t sit right with me—if it’s just a musey shitpost I fully endorse it? like I agreed with every successive point you made as I read this comment, so I’m going back now to see what set me off

ok it’s the framing up front as “far beyond misinformation.” that is a word that, to me at least, connotes something really pernicious and triggers a low-key panicky defensiveness around the institutionalized status quo—an extremely specific feeling that, due to reasons, i’ve come to distrust very deeply and will reflexively push back on or probe critically

but setting aside my personal bullshit—what does framing this whole thing as an extremely intense instance of misinformation achieve in and for your original post?

indigosfindings

the phrasing of "it goes so far beyond ordinary misinformation" was never intended to suggest "it is especially nefarious": it's to say "this situation has a series of strange & amusing elements that are not typically present in an ordinary misinformation situation"--elements that i then proceeded to list through facetious substitution.

im not going to fault you for having a knee-jerk reaction to something, & i appreciate your being up-front about that, but that kind of response is really not a basis for constructing useful arguments--it's something that historically tends toward supporting reactionary & immaterial conclusions. drawing a vibes-based conclusion & building a post-hoc argument to support it is the method that supports claims like "taylor swift is secretly gay" & "there are chemtrails poisoning on you" & "havana syndrome" &, well, "chat is a fourth-person pronoun". case & point: this approach has forced you to characterize the propagation of misinformation as a meaningful & rightheaded effort to challenge hegemonic knowledge production, & objection to that misinformation as a defence of "the status quo"

like i said, youre not objecting to any of the things im actually saying--your objection seems to be a combination of a semantic grievance & "it is inherently suspect to say that someone is wrong about something"

#good argument #you’re allowed to be wrong on the internet #confidently misunderstanding the structures you are employing is not good #and it’s not the same as subverting them

bowlingwithroman

"pan people have privilege for being pan"

"bi people have privilege for being bi"

"ace/aro people have privilege for being ace/aro"

"trans men have privilege for being trans men"

new target, same discourse that never works

chillgamesh-the-swing

modusponendoponens

Note that in the case of the pansexuals, the male privilege of pansexual men is not brought up relative to pansexual women. Because the pansexual men do not have privilege for being pansexual, they have privilege for being men.

In the case of the bisexuals, the male privilege of bisexual men is not brought up relative to bisexual women. Because the bisexual men do not have privilege for being bisexual, they have privilege for being men.

In the case of the aroace people, the male privilege of aroace men is not brought up relative to aroace women. Because the aroace men do not have privilege for being aroace, they have privilege for being men.

Now consider, do trans men have male privilege relative to trans women? Do trans men have privilege for being trans? Do trans men have privilege men?

The veneer of parallelism between the first three lines and the fourth is broken when you realize that there’s something that all men have with respect to similarly marginalized women: male privilege. Had OP written “trans people have privilege for being trans” the argument would have been parallel. But the gendered language is snuck in at the end to position trans men in the same way as bi/pan/aro/ace people. This rhetorical sleight of hand is done to elide the positionality of a men as beneficiaries of patriarchy.

Trans men have privilege for being men. They do not have privilege for being trans. Trans men have male privilege relative to trans women. They do so because they are men. To deny this is to deny either that trans men are men (transphobia), or to deny that men have privilege over women (antifeminism).

Note also that a screenshot of someone whose presentation (name, avatar) implies transfemininity is used for the follow-up. This follow-up is targeted at opponents of OP, and, presumably, opponents of the replier well. Who might those opponents be? OP argues against the proposition that trans men have privilege. If you’ll permit me some light conjecture based on circumstantial evidence, the target is transfeminists who notably, frequently, remind TME people not to call them bro. The use of this screenshot is discursively using the words of a trans woman to misgender trans women.

#bad argument

anonpolls

Do you believe trans men face a unique axis of oppression (transandrophobia)? Do you believe gay men face a unique axis of oppression (homoandrophobia)?

yes, both are real forms of oppression

transandrophobia is real, homoandrophobia isn't

homoandrophobia is real, transandrophobia isn't

neither are real

Voting ended onOct 4, 2025

it's important that this is about the intersections of queer and male oppression, and not asking about individual oppressions like transphobia or homophobia.

-submit your poll!-

welcometohell09

For those in the notes who are confused on how intersectionality works: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersectionality

Intersectionality - Wikipedia

(The rest of this is copy/pasted from an explanation I gave to someone in the replies, with a bit of added context for clarity.)

...the whole POINT of intersectionality is understanding the ways in which axes of privilege AND marginalisation interact. It does not matter wether or not 'androphobia' exists, because being a man does not exist in a vacuum, ESPECIALLY being a transgender man, where the two (being transgender and being a man) are fundamentally inseparable in nature. Trans men do not go through life being a man in some circumstances and trans in others; they go through life experiencing Being A Man in a way which is fundamentally inseparable from queerness, and Being Transgender in a way which is inextricable from masculinity. The patriarchy is based off a cisgender model of manhood. Non-cisgender masculinity is NOT rewarded by a cispatriarchy, and if you think it is, you need to actually do some research. I don't care if that sounds condescending, it is true. If you believe you can dictate how a marginalised group talk about their own oppression and wether or not their oppression is "real", you do not understand the situation well enough for your opinion to hold any actual weight. Being a transgender man is a unique axis of oppression (not "better" or "worse" than transmisogyny, but distinct) because transphobia is GENDER BASED OPPRESSION. Arguing that trans men are rewarded for being men is TERF shit.

If you require specific examples of transandrophobia, consider:

- "the pure but confused girls are going to mutilate themselves and become barren and ruined".

- "women are oppressed and men are privileged, therefore trans men are just evil patriarchal wannabes with internalised misogyny who want the power to hurt other women and therefore are inherently predatory by nature".

- "crazy fujoshis are so obsessed with yaoi they're deluding themselves into believing they're men" (fun fact: this specific type of pro-censorship/anti-yaoi rhetoric was initially conceived and spread by an anti-trans hate group).

- "testosterone makes you angry/predatory/evil, therefore people shouldn't be allowed to go on androgenising hormones".

- "trans men should be excluded from womens' shelters/gynaecological care/DV support groups/etc because they're men and they don't need it".

- "transmasculinity is ideologically oppositional to feminism" (generally seen in the "they weren't a historical trans figure, they were a feminist" argument).

- "trans men are just confused/self-hating/misogynistic butch lesbians and need to be taught to Accept Themselves" (my Dad personally loves this one, despite me having dated a woman since before my transition AND being attracted to men which means that regardless of me being a man I'm STILL GAY).

There are more than these, of course. This is just off the top of my head.

But genuinely, please. We deserve to be able to articulate our experiences just like any other group. If you're not going to help, at least get out of the way.

modusponendoponens

You start this post with a link to wikipedia’s intersectionality page and proceed to display your lack of understanding of intersectionality theory. Please actually read Crenshaw’s paper. It is not long.

Trans men are not oppressed for being men. They are oppressed for being transgender. There is no structural oppression at the intersection of manhood and transness because there is no such thing as structural oppression against men. Arguing that structural oppression against men exists is an antifeminist stance.

The argument from Crenshaw’s paper is that:

1. Black women are treated as a distinct class from white women, to their detriment (racism).

2. Black women are treated as a distinct class from Black men, to their detriment (misogyny)

3. Black women are therefore at an intersection of racism and misogyny, which neither other group (black men, white women) face,

To argue for transandrophobia, you must argue that both

1. Trans men are treated as a distinct class from cis men, to their detriment (transphobia; we agree on this point)

2. Trans men are treated as a distinct class from trans women, to their detriment (misandry; which does not exist).

There is no misandry, therefore there is no transmisandry as unique intersection of structural oppressions.

Your examples at the end of your post are transphobic. But the only structural oppression on display is against trans people, or against trans men recast (transphobically) as women. They are not misandry.

#as always #one can reject my conclusion by asserting that feminism is not a valid theory of analysis #but anti feminists are not fruitful conversational partners

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