I think a clear difference between “trans feminism” and actual feminism. “Trans feminists” highlight demonization and supposed false accusations of rape and pedophilia. Actual feminists recognize that a community that encourages accusations to go ignored or disbelieved immediately is suspect for abuse. I’ve been doing some light reading, both on actual feminist reading, and the faux feminism from primarily MTFs. While I’m making my way through text heavier reading on feminism, I saw Tara Knight’s article. “Group Dynamics, Conflict and Fascism : The Psychology Of Why Everyone Loves To Hurt A Tran”
Immediately my mind went to Kitty Robinson’s “On Hurting Trans Women” This is an analysis of Knight’s article, and near the end how I believe Robinson explains why articles like this exist in the first place.
Knight digs into rumors and reputation, he goes in great depth on how what people say about him on social media could literally kill him or someone else. I’d like to take a moment to note, his ex girlfriend and a former roommate have both publicly accused him of being abusive. And for someone that believes his reputation on Tumblr means his survival, he is quite comfortable posting pics of himself in a diaper and sexualizing young biological women.
To summarize his article, “community fascism” involves policing and monitoring, particularly trans women. It works by having a “collaborator” in the community that watches trans women, to find an excuse, a rumor, any reason to socially exile them. The term “social execution” is used. Reputation is a form of survival and having your reputation slandered revokes your access to basic needs. The reason the collaborator socially “executes” the trans woman is because she (Knight refers to the collaborator as a woman) was trained to do that from a young age on top of sexual repression.
“Second, reputation control. When you cannot access safety through formal institutions, your reputation becomes a survival tool. The regime weaponizes that. It turns reputation into currency, then centralizes the mint, then starts counterfeiting moral accusations to seize people’s accounts.”
For someone who is greatly concerned with his social reputation and claims false accusations are a large threat to his livelihood, it is curious some of the things we can find freely on his public blog, other than just the diapers.
Sexual misogynistic language used below
Knight talks extensively about having to apologize. What is he apologizing for? Who is falsely accusing him? The answer is “The community is making me apologize for being a trans woman and socially murdering me because of fascism.” And that’s really the only answers he gives. On his blog, he also blames his NPD as for why people hate him, admitted to hurting his friends, and telling someone else to die. In his article, he speaks in theory with no concrete examples of whatever the hell it is he is saying. Who is accusing you of what? Who are these clearly vague post statements about? Why are you being labeled as a manipulative narcissist? He’ll say it’s because he’s a proud transfeminist. The language the article uses is meant to evoke strong emotions, and is rather self aggrandizing.
He has been accused of using AI before, and whether that’s true or not, the prose is rather similar to what I’ve seen of people’s conversations with ChatGPT. ChatGPT and other AIs are programmed off of how we speak, so while it can be like holding up a mirror, the thing the AI does that we don’t is, well, like this line from the article, “If you reject that legacy, you’re not being anti-intellectual. You’re being awake.” “It’s not X, it’s Y, plus ego stroke” is a format you’ll see often in AI, Knight also uses it rather often, and while it is possible , I think that might not be evidence as possible AI usage, rather, his method of reaching to his audience, I suspect the language is intentional.
Now about the “social murder” of transgender women.
“Let’s talk about what this thing does in the real world, because I’m tired of people acting like it’s “social media drama” or “just feelings” or “just interpersonal conflict.” Community fascism is a regime. And Regimes have levers. Levers move bodies. Levers move money. Levers decide who eats, who sleeps indoors, who gets to keep their hormones, who gets to keep a job, who gets to keep a ride to the clinic, who gets to keep a roof without a landlord suddenly “changing their mind.” It runs on a simple trick: make a trans-feminized person socially radioactive, then pretend the suffering that follows is “consequence” instead of a coordinated deprivation of basic life supports.”
“So when someone says “community,” what they usually mean is a messy web of dependencies and favors and unspoken debts, and that web can keep you alive or kill you slowly. In that environment, the collaborator is born: the person who realizes they can purchase stability by becoming the moral accountant, the rumor courier, the unofficial cop. They don’t need a badge. They have access. They have standing. They have the power to say “I heard something,” and watch doors close.… Their “we’ll hold you accountable” is an opening bid to occupy you. They want you exhausted, apologizing, available, legible, controllable. They want you to surrender leverage. They want you to agree, publicly, that they have the right to manage your life. Then they can widen the list of demands whenever it’s convenient, because the real win was never your growth. The win was your submission.
“Lots of implication. Lots of “I can’t say more.” Lots of “we’re just trying to keep people safe” while they spread the kind of social contagion that makes people unemployable, homeless, uninsured, and isolated.”
Knight’s theory puts one between a rock and a hard place as a way to enforce silence. By equating speaking out, listening to people who come forward about an abuse, is to deprive trans women of basic needs and be a fascist. To be a good ally, your hands are tied. Any public criticism is an attempt at social murder. You have to choose. The obvious glaring flaw with this is he’s continuously beating around what he’s getting at. Who is trying to hold him accountable? What has he been accused of? Of course he leaves all of that information out of this article and it’s all incredibly vague. There’s this mysterious collaborator trying to conspire against him for social benefit and gain and trying to control his life, in the name of moral purity, and this is a challenge all “transfeminized” people face. However knowing the social controversy surrounding him of other MTFs and a woman claiming him to be abusive, you have an idea of what he’s talking about.
So why are people “being mean” to him? He says, with his source being Wilhelm Reich, is in part due to sexual repression.
“He names the social machinery that helps do that production: the authoritarian family and the church, plus the broader enforcement of “sexual repression” as social discipline. He even points to the way organized mysticism hooks the masses by feeding off unsatisfied erotic longing. That is not a vibe. That is a material method. That is a factory line for obedience…. It’s trained into people from childhood. Reich lays it out: moral inhibition of a natural sexuality produces adults who become “afraid… fearful of authority, obedient, ‘good’, and ‘docile’,” with rebellion crippled by fear and a general inhibition of critical thought; the family becomes “the authoritarian state in miniature,” a factory reproducing the state’s structure inside your nerves.”
For thousands of years, women and girls have been subject to male violence. Knight claims “false accusations” and people that are “just trying to keep the community safe” are born from sexual repression and indoctrinated into being fascists. What often is more likely the case is the fact that often, a victim of abuse or sexual violence cannot come forward, and when legal action is pursued, the vast majority of cases end with no conviction, the rapist/abuser walks free. We’ve had to rely on each other to spread the word of male violence. This is what caused the intense emotional reaction from men when “Me too” arose and all of these rich and powerful men had to face public accusations. Women may not have been able to enforce legal consequences against their abusers, but they could speak. They could compare experiences. They could warn each other, whether it be a powerful rich man or not. Many men cried slander, lamented fears of being falsely accused, of having their lives permanently ruined by these accusations, of not being hired anymore or that they’d be put on a registry.
However he has a different idea as to why his imaginary “collaborator” exists.
“Somebody raised in conditional love starts reproducing conditional love everywhere, then calls it “maturity.” That’s the psychological bridge between internalized authority and community fascism. The collaborator isn’t only calculating. She’s often reenacting. She’s attaching to a moral order the way a frightened child attaches to a strict parent, because strictness feels like safety when your nervous system was built inside threat.”
This gives us some more insight on how Knight views women. As I said, in his mind, this collaborator is a woman. More specifically, a sexually repressed woman attaching to moral order “like a frightened child” attaching to a strict parent. But also like many transfems, he demands unconditional love and support from a woman, as seen by his statement “w(h)ere the cis girls offering me some emotional support in DMs?” And also “where da bitches at” in that one note. As well as the last bit of this passage
“Our lives are materially exposed. Housing is fragile. Employment is fragile. Access to hormones, surgeons, transport, food, couches, rent money, rides to appointments, a spare room for a week, a job lead, a landlord who won’t freak out, a client base that doesn’t turn into a mob overnight, a clinic that doesn’t play games, a friend who will spot you groceries, a girlfriend who will still answer the phone when you’re spiraling.”
As female people, the transfem community constantly, aggressively even, will demand emotional labor from us.
This is where I had Kitty Robinson in mind, on both Knight’s desire for a woman to comfort him, and his claim that accusations against trans women are born from fascism and hurt trans women.
“I will not deny I cause trans women emotional pain. Let me give you an example: a few years ago, when it was uncovered that a celebrity trans woman who is very active in youth organizing is a serial rapist, there was a large push from a few women for their victim’s testimony to gain traction. This “trans icon” is at large in a city that is very trans & queer friendly. Due to their celebrity status, they have a large amount of victims to pick from. They prefer transmasculine & trans men victims, that is to say, female trans people. A leftist trans woman with a large audience who lived in the same area as the serial rapist was approached about spreading the word about this active predator. They did momentarily, but then deleted the information as they decided the information had been posted by a TERF.”
… “The next day, my messages were full of angry people demanding I stop harassing trans women. I checked the leftist’s trans woman’s blog and they had written at length about how intensely dysphoric and suicidal interactions like this made them, and how in particular discussions about male violence from trans women made them feel like a disgusting monster who would never be a real woman or fit in. My anger hurt this trans woman deeply. They were suffering.”
On a personal note, as female people, we are their therapists. Their crisis counselors. “Transfeminist” ideology demands that we center their feelings before we acknowledge ours. That we always love them, that we’ll always answer the phone, that we be the perfect good allies. This re-contextualizes Knight’s line, “Somebody raised in conditional love starts reproducing conditional love everywhere, then calls it “maturity.”” In my relationship with a trans girl when I was sixteen years old up until recently, for the entire three year relationship, my personal issues took a backseat. I was a shoulder to cry on, while I often cried alone because I had a partner that did not want to listen to me when I was sad. After having her head slammed three times, Kitty Robinson’s first act was to comfort her abuser.
Knight is unlikely any different. That is to say, if you were to enter a romantic relationship to this man, you’d be with a man that spent all of his time online while wearing a diaper for sexual reasons and showing it off, as well as being financially and emotionally responsible for him. A manchild. His idea of unconditional love is that a woman is always available to perform emotional labor for him. If not, then clearly you just weren’t unconditionally loved enough as a child. Keep in mind this is someone that hears the word “accountability” and believes you’re trying to control him and make him submissive and obedient.
Unlike what Knight theorizes of gaining social benefit for naming a serial rapist in the community, Robinson faced heavy harassment. Having read through her other book, “You Told Me You Were Different”, victims of male violence from MTFs are often left confused and socially isolated.
“Trans ideology said: these male people are not men. They are just like you. If you think of or treat these people as men (or male), you are actively contributing to the oppression, suicide, and murder of the most vulnerable women alive, trans women. By the way, this includes thinking of any of their (male-patterned) behavior as male, being uncomfortable in any way, or not immediately and enthusiastically including them in your lesbian sexuality. I took it to heart, and that’s how I ended up in that hot car, stroking my trans girlfriend’s long hair, knowing that this couldn’t be a truly abusive situation, because the power dynamics between a dfab trans person and a trans woman wouldn’t allow it.”
You have to give transgender women infinite patience. Infinite grace. Infinite and unconditional love. As many chances as possible. They’re going through a lot, don’t abandon them. You have to be the perfect ally, don’t be a rumor spreading sexually repressed scared little girl. You have to give them your body. For the good of the transfeminist movement. It’s revolutionary for them to stick their penises in you, letting them do that is giving “the middle finger to transmisogyny.”
Articles like this exist because female people using one of the few tactics we have to keep each other and ourselves safe, or to get justice for what was done to us, to name and shame, will always hurt males, especially those who demand access to women’s bodies and wish to take advantage of the fact we’re socialized to put him first and ourselves second.
Below is a link to Robinson’s article
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