Controversial opinion but I’m actually starting to think there is such a thing as binary privilege within the trans community, I just don’t think it exists in the ways that most people have ignorantly speculated about it.
I definitely don’t think that you can lump in binary cis women cis men trans women and trans men as a cohesive group and any presumption to do so is totally off base. I also don’t think that transgender women experience materially impactful “binary privilege” over CAFAB nonbinary people.
But I do think that, nonbinary identity being a form of gender-nonconformity (most nonbinary people presenting or wishing to present in a way that is visibly gender-variant, and vocalizing a nonbinary identity in itself being an act of gender-nonconformity with material consequences) that within certain groups (for the sake of simplicity I’ll just discuss this in terms of CAFAB and CAMAB) binary identities are prioritized over non-binary identities.
As a CAFAB nonbinary person who is vocal about their identity I definitely do not have access to the same privilege a trans man does. Not only do both cis people and many binary trans people view my identity as being more insolent than that of a trans man and inherently less worthy of accomodation (see: The entire situation surrounding Jordan Peterson at the University of Toronto and people now boycotting the entire federal trans rights bill in Canada on the basis of not wanting to use “they” pronouns) but I have experienced barriers to health care that doctors have expressly told me I would not have experienced if I was a trans man. I have also been subjected to trans men explicitly using my identity as something to attack and dismiss in order to establish more social capital for themselves, and while briefly working for an LGBT organization, had my supervisors take my opinions on trans issues less seriously than those of binary trans people, even if those opinions were on nonbinary issues specifically, as well being subjected to invalidating micro-aggressions from both my cis coworkers and other trans people and saw similar things happen to my CAMAB nonbinary coworkers.
And while I do not feel that trans women hold some sort of gender-related privilege over me as a CAFAB person by virtue of a binary identity since transmisogyny is a significantly more materially impactful issue, I definitely have heard and seen, and had CAMAB people express to me similar experiences to what I’ve described be experienced by CAMAB nonbinary/GNC transfeminine people from binary trans women (see: Blair White and Theryn Meyer attacking nonbinary transfeminine people to increase their social capital and being given authority to speak over CAMAB nonbinary people on nonbinary-specific issues).
There’s also the issue of binary favoritism from cis people. Nonbinary people experience unique forms of conversion therapy even from therapists and doctors who claim not to practice conversion therapy, where doctors attempt to convince nonbinary people they need to “really figure out” their gender, gaslighting their patients about the validity of nonbinary identity and subjecting them to additional barriers to care should they refuse to adopt a binary identity. There is extensive medical documentation in both literature on the medicalization of trans people and on the medicalization of intersex people that the medical industrial complex has a vested interest in persuading GNC people towards binary identities, even if those identities are transgender, rather than allowing a person to embody an explicitly nonbinary gender identity and presentation, and that it is willing to carry out this agenda through means of institutional violence and bodily harm via either pressuring nonbinary people into forms of transition they do not want, or restricting access to forms of transition they do want.
Through the research I’ve done this year into the medicalization of intersex people I’ve discovered a frightening overlap in ideological motivation between the medicalization and abuse of intersex people and the medicalization and abuse of nonbinary people. And while I do not think that it’s the place of dyadic nonbinary people to speak on this, at this point I do not think that is it possible to neatly separate nonbinary issues from intersex issues from an institutional perspective in a way that isn’t completely ahistorical.
So yeah TL;DR to a certain extent I do think that nonbinary people experience forms of oppression that are unique to people of nonbinary identities, I just think the way it’s been previously discussed has been extremely fallacious, that it cannot be discussed in a way that equates cis and trans women and men as a cohesive group, and that it cannot be discussed in a way that draws false equivalency between CAMAB and CAFAB experiences or doesn’t account for transmisogyny.
I know this is a really controversial topic and if you think I’m off-base I’d really appreciate feedback or criticism bc I’m still developing my thoughts on this!
Quoting for emphasis, because this hits the nail right on the head:
Not only do both cis people and many binary trans people view my identity as being more insolent than that of a trans man and inherently less worthy of accommodation (see: The entire situation surrounding Jordan Peterson at the University of Toronto and people now boycotting the entire federal trans rights bill in Canada on the basis of not wanting to use “they” pronouns) but I have experienced barriers to health care that doctors have expressly told me I would not have experienced if I was a trans man.
perhaps this is my experience coming from bi “discourse” and the act of language policing, but i get extremely uncomfortable when people say anything akin to “you can’t lump these people into a cohesive group” when talking about privilege/oppression dynamics. because that is a very small logical jump to “therefore this oppression/experience doesn’t exist” or works to minimize an oppressed group’s participation in upholding pericis heteropatriarchy.
i’m going to note here, openly, that i am tme, agender, and femme. and the last time i talked about binary privilege i was harassed, gaslit, and called a TERF, for essentially saying that i, as a tme person, experience hardships that trans women do not. i’ve watched “cohesive group” be used to shut down discussions on monosexism and allosexism. to turn these words into Terrible Nasty things. this is where i’m coming from, when i talk about this /specific critique.
i’m not saying, at all, that trans women hold complete access to societal power over me, a tme person. i think the base premises of “binary people experience transness differently than nb people” is valid and needs to be talked about. i also do agree that transmisogyny affects binary & nonbinary trans women & femmes in a completely different way, with greater chances of violence, gatekeeping, assault, poverty, etc etc etc.
but the idea that “you can’t lump this group that is oppressed with their oppressor on one axis, when talking about another axis of oppression” has only been used to shut down discussions of people’s experience, especially those who aren’t cis, binary, and monosexual. it is, essentially, a twisting of the TERF logic against the use of cis as a descriptor at all. they use these same arguments. men oppress women, therefore cis people (men & women) are not a cohesive group.
i hope you can understand why i am concerned with your language, there. because it feels, to me, that nb people (and bi and ace folks, too) must hem and haw and twist their use of basic sociological frameworks, creating asterisks and post scripts, editing and self-censoring to not get on anyone’s toes, in a way that other groups don’t have to when they talk about their oppression. as if the basics of intersectionality don’t apply. as if claiming a group has privilege over you means that they hold the Same Exact Access to that privilege that the whitest, straightest, binary pericis-est man does. cis groups together men and women, abled and disabled people, white people and people of color, queer people and straight people, and no one throws a fit about it not being a “cohesive group” except for TERFs.
and i constantly question why it’s not the same for nonbinary people, when talking about their specific oppressions for being nonbinary. for the conversion therapy, for the fact that i can’t change my gender marker on my identification, because there is literally no box to check, for my lack of access to resources that i don’t have to translate…..
i think talking about privilege like this, about binary privilege, and especially when marginalized people act in very, very similar ways to the people they are oppressed by, is to consider it access to certain privileges, as opposed to an overarching, fully accessible, Societal Benefit. if that makes sense?
tl;dr: the use of cohesive group as a reason to not talk about privilege/oppression is based, essentially, on pushback by terfs to the term cis, has been used against bi people & ace people when talking about their oppression as well, and is used to silence discussions by these groups about their own oppression, and the ways all people actively work to reinforce it. the op is right in saying that transmisogyny must be considered in these discussions, but it cannot be used as an excuse to silence them.
tl;dr the tl;dr: i agree with 98% of what you’re saying OP, but the term cohesive group and the following logic has real bad history for me, and you should think about why you’re using it.
