I am Mera (she/her). I am a black and Native American Marxist transfeminist who creates theory on underdiscussed topics.
I am a womanist, lesbian, intersex transgender woman.
Temporarily I am removing the link to my essay. It will be back up once it is altered with the intended changes.
For my other intro post.
At birth I was designated female. That event has impacted my experience with and relationship to transfemininity/transmisogyny. Regardless, like any other trans person, I do not identify with the gender assigned to me at birth. I identify as a woman, of which I was not assigned.
If you want to learn about it more, come talk to me! If you don't, do us both a favor and block me.
On this blog, “female” and female assignment refers to the patriarchy's idea of gender that determines that women should be defined by immutability, sexual subjugation and essential biological traits. Trans women too suffer under this assignment. Here, “female” does not refer to biological sex or gender identity. “Female” and woman are two different things.
My essay delves into this further.
I am several times more assertive of my identity and positionality than I used to be. Unless you have meaningful critique of my analysis, don't bother engaging with me. I've heard what you want to say before and I don't care to hear it again.
I'm open to honest conversation and discussion over my theory though I expect a basic understanding of marginalization dynamics on your part.
White people, that means stop making false race comparisons.
I won't tolerate transphobia (associating me with my assigned sex ie. calling me “an AFAB”) or purposeful misrepresentation of my posts or beliefs. If you treat me as “less trans” than other trans women or try to tell me I don't deserve a voice in transfeminine spaces then I will probably tear into you and/or call you pathetic.
TwERFS, transphobes, bigots, fascists/right wing, trans/misogynists, racists and serial harassers go fuck yourselves.
My posts of personal experience are based on my own struggles as a perpetual victim of transmisogynoir, I share them partly because this site needs more black transfeminized narratives and partly to illustrate how someone like me exists as a trans woman.
For more information, see my Bluesky, Substack, or Medium.
Black Native Transfeminist
Author of assignment theory
she/her 🏳️⚧️ @oddtransfem on Tumblr
As a dedicated transfeminist, I write in the context of political analyses relating to how gender is assigned and different subjects within
Read writing from Mera on Medium. As a dedicated transfeminist, I write in the context of political analyses relating to how gender is assig
Block #transmisogyny tw #transmisogyny cw # transphobia tw & #transphobia cw if discrimination against transgender people triggers you.
Check my featured tags in the search for more!
FAQ
Is this an AFAB transfem blog?
This blog doesn't especially focus on transfems assigned female at birth, it's not a mogai blog or a contradictory label blog. This is a politics blog.
It is mostly about transfeminized people in general. That includes transgender people who weren't assigned male at birth yet have feminine gender identities that fundamentally don't align with their assignments and that defy patriarchal gender norms. I consider them under the transfeminine umbrella.
Do you support AFAB transfems?
In large part yes, I've come to a lot of different conclusions having surrounded myself with the community and in short I can say that I do. If you strongly oppose that I frankly don't care and would like you to consider that your perception of them — like mine was — is based on your assumptions rather than any real source. That's not a good way to build your perception of a minority.
And frankly I don't trust you if vocally obsess over them.
I don't personally appreciate the fact that there is such an emphasis on “AFAB” as part of the label and think that is a large part of why so many transmisogynists identify themselves that way but I understand there isn't much of another common way to communicate the same concept currently. This is why I coined “assignment variant”.
Are you an AFAB transfem?
Even though technically I was assigned female at birth and am transfeminine, please do not call me “AFAB”. Referring to me as “an AFAB” associates me with my assignment which upsets me as it would any other trans person. I would never describe another trans woman as “an AMAB” so don't do that to me. Neither AFAB nor AMAB is a social category or identity, it is a description of the coercive designation society assigns infants at birth that determines what they're supposed be.
I am a trans woman because I am trans in relation to my gender assignment — of which I do not identify — and utterly and entirely a woman.
Are you TME or TMA?
Considering that I am literally a trans woman who's womanhood is subject to being revoked or used against me at any moment, as well as my being frequently targeted and affected by transmisogyny it would be mistaken to consider me TME. This acknowledges my material reality and lived experiences that, regardless of your opinion, directly tie into my oppression.
I have lived with the internal experience of being trans ever since I was born and an external one for years now; excluding transmisogyny from an assessment of my marginalization leaves out crucial factors that contribute to my social position.
Transfeminism?
I am a very avid transfeminist. My theory, my accounts, my blog are all based around it. I have done a lot of reading and a lot of living which has influenced my own analysis. Do not assume that because of my assignment I am somehow naïve around topics within transfeminism. I have intricate knowledge of gender assignment and the functions of marginalization especially.
Don't bother to engage with me if you can't explain to me how marginalization as a whole generally works.
Hello everyone! I'll be stepping away from this Tumblr account for an indefinite amount of time. I've realized this harassment and the constant hatred all over my dash is not worth my mental health, I need time to reevaluate before I come back better.
I can't promise that by the time I'm back I'll have rewritten my essay, I'm hoping to work on it with a couple people and my ability to will be fairly limited while I'm on my little break.
Thank you to the people who've supported me and engaged with me respectfully despite everything.
Drink some water and hug a friend for me, this is bye for now!
The kink community is the only community focused around harm reduction for doing foul, dangerous shit for sex purposes. People are into all kinds of things, and all of it can be made safer and should be done with informed consent.
Without the kink community, people are shoving bottles up their ass just 'cause it feels good, and they just don't know the risks.
Within the kink community, people will practically YELL "FLARED BASE" at you if you try that.
This applies to even the most vanilla sex. Any sex should have this degree of informed consent and non-judgment. When people react like this to the kink community, the puritanism never stops at "the weird stuff"; it goes to blowjobs and even to sex where the woman gets any pleasure at all, or even gets adequately informed.
Being encouraged into sex with your spouse while having been systematically deprived of sex education is just rape, institutionalized and promoted by a puritanical society, and the people who are anti-kink are on a spectrum which goes from "want and specifically work to harm people for what kind of sex they like to have with other adults" to "want and specifically work for a society that institutionalizes rape" and I have no time for anything on this spectrum, because it all enables those rapes.
The safety of the most vanilla cishet women and men depends on the culture created by the freaks. Without them, you have nothing. So, please, prudes, shut the fuck up about the faggots being horny for siscon, knifeplay, piercing bondage, murder/cannibalism/vore, whatever. None of it is harmful if you can draw clear lines between fantasy and reality, and establish clear consent. Panic over what a society aware of sex might do just gets people raped.
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weird as fuck living in a culture where it's considered more impolite to speak up and defend yourself against someone treating you unfairly than it is for someone to be rude to you in the first place
There's like, 50 things I want to say, about how you being attacked is wrong, and people should meet your on the field of wits, and how I understand and sympathies with those who do, who are scared. I genuinely want to understand this essay, For I believe one can't truly agree nor disagree with someone if they do not understand the point they are stating.
Anyway.
I think your essay (essays?) is missing a few definitions. After reading it, I don't really understand your definition of Transgender, for one. It isn't clearly defined at the top. Which is clearly important when talking about as a topic. I currently under the assumption that you're going based off the 8th Paragraph of "Female Assignment" "Transgression" It seems like this paragraph may be you defining the essence of being transgender? If this isn't the point of this paragraph, I do not understand the purpose of it. otherwise, it simply states that there exists people who do not exist within the roles of our society, which was stated earlier.
I also had troubles understanding a few other, smaller sections: In the third paragraph, where you link to "The Second Sex"; what are you talking about "This is demonstrated too by how no women perfectly embodies the patriarchal standard of being “female”. “Female”ness dictates that a woman may not be a person, that she must renounce her humanity and complexity for the sake of pursuing an unattainable goal" The bolded section clearly is referring to page 52, where they speak of Individuality being forsaken for the benefit of the species, but what "goal" are you referring to? I assume you are referencing a different passage in the same book, but I couldn't parse which. -unless that goal is the pursuit of the contradiction Bell Hooks describes?
In your glossary, the terms "Female" and "Male" aren't really defined: they allude to their meaning, "A description of how the cis-patriarchy defines womanhood/manhood" but they are defined in great detail later, but are used quite a bit before they are defined. It gets confusing since Feminine, Female, Woman, Womanhood are all different terms, and there is no way for someone to know their definitions without first reading a few paragraphs talking about these things. This is more of a suggestion than me not understanding, although it did cause me great confusion on my first read, and made me re-read the first bit after getting the definition.
Before I begin, thank you wholeheartedly for your ask, it's refreshing to have something to engage with rather than listen to a bunch of people yelling the same thing at me with their ears plugged.
If you'd like to discuss this further my direct messages are open to you.
This is long by the way
First, you mention that my definition of transgender isn't defined in the beginning of my essay.
I didn't define it specifically because I wouldn't have made any changes, I would have written "transgender people are those who at least partly do not identify with genders assigned to them at birth" and I don't think there would have been much use in doing so.
I defined the words that I used in an unusual way, female and male usually refer to biological sex.
Secondly yes the Transgression portion was intended to be a description of the transgender experience, specifically the way transgender people violate the patriarchal status quo — aka gender assignment — by diverging from it's essential components. I didn't define this concept previously, I defined instances of deviation which is often experienced by marginalized/masculinized cisgender women. People who's gender identities do not undermine gender assignment.
I wanted to first define that before I could illustrate my argument on how women like me do materially defy gender assignment. I could have structured this part better, it's something I plan to change when I update this essay in the near future.
Next, I am referring to the goal of the patriarchy, to make women a class of obedient sub-humans defined by biology, immutability, youth and subservience.
I could have cited Simone better here, there are places in her book that illustrate my intent better such as page 160, “Balzac expresses the same ideal in more cynical ways: woman's destiny, and her only glory, is to make the hearts of men beat... ‘... she is personal property, and the posession of her is as good as a security—indeed, properly speaking, woman is only man's annexe.’”
The bell hook's pursuit of the contradiction could also be utilized in my point as well but at the end of the day they're referring to the same thing. In this case, what's most important is that there exists an ideal/goal the patriatchy uses to scrutinize individual women which I call gender assignment or “female”ness. I emphasize that it is unattainable in an attempt to illustrate how distinct it is from women as a social group or gender identity. How someone like me is a transgender woman for deviating from that goal as a consequence of my gender identity.
Finally, my failure to properly define “female”ness and “male”ness is a flaw in the way the essay was written. I wrote the Glossary before I finished the essay, which I should not have done; I really only did that so I didn't forget later.
That'll be improved later, I'll define those words better prior to my extensive use of them.
Again, thank you a thousand times over for your feedback, I feel that its been a very needed addition that I've been looking for for a long time. I want to make my theory as best it can be so that at the very least it properly establishes where I come from.
If you have further critique I'd love to hear it, for now I will work on implementing the meaningful responses I have gotten, as well as the changes I've wanted to make for a while now.
Before I finish this, I think it would be greatly helpful to you as well as I for the future structure to be clear on the messages different portions of my essay tries to get across.
Glossary: I am using female and male in a way that isn't done so commonly. They're alike gender assignment here. I would also like me and my readers to be on the same page in our understanding of transmisogyny.
First 4 paragraphs: Trans women are a highly marginalized population in society. Transmisogyny is a real issue and it is severely under-recognized.
Female Assignment: For the purpose of this essay, “female” refers to female gender assignment. Being “female” or assigned female is seperate from being a woman partly because it is an unattainable goal/ideal as opposed to social category and partly because you do not need to be assigned female (at birth or otherwise) to be a woman.
Deviation: This refers to the experience of marginalized women who are dehumanized and subjugated for diverging from the patriarchy's assignment of gender. They don't do so in a way that directly challenges the most basic components of gender like trans people do.
Transgression: People who diverge from patriarchy's assignment of gender as a consequence of their gender identities. Who undermine the most essential elements of it (biological characteristics, essentialism, gendered identification, etc.)
Because society holds trans women to a “female standard” as well as a male one, they are too assigned female even if they weren't at birth.
The main gender assignment we're given will change at any given point in our, especially trans people's, lives.
AFAB Transfems: People assigned female at birth can diverge and undermine the essential elements of female gender assignments as a consequence of their feminine gender identities. Their womanhood can be deemed inappropriate, improper or even monstrous. It can be revoked from them at any time. They are cast in the same social position as other transgender women.
Those are the most important parts. The subsequent paragraphs will be completely reworked if not deleted.
I got one singular ask with a comprehensive, well-thought out criticism of my essay which I'll go over in greater detail later today.
To whoever wrote it, I appreciate it immensely among all the shit I've had to peruse through and I'll likely use your feedback when I edit the piece. I've been meaning to do so for a while.
If you'd like to continue speaking I'd welcome that. Thank you for taking the time to see me as a person.
If anyone would like to speak to me in a manner half as articulated my direct messages are open. I will not be entertaining the screaming into the void of my asks any longer.
This will be the last post I publish before turning off my asks.
Here is my semi-final response.
Fuck you, fuck your self righteous harassment campaign and fuck your DARVO. Lying about me so that you don't have to engage with my points is pathetic.
I am a transgender woman. I am a transsexual. Nothing you can say will change that. If that makes you mad, block me.
that last ask is in regards to estrogenesis, not you. lol
That's disheartening to hear but not entirely surprising. Half the time when I see other transfeminists I really respect in my follows, I'll wonder how long it takes for some of them to read my pinned and realize "hey this is the minority i hate!"
gotta love when someone that complains so much about being the victim of harassment campaigns purposefully incites harassment of another trans woman. tumblr drama is a disease
i shouldn't be responding to these asks because they're really stupid but it's so hard not telling these people what they've never had the chance to hear before.
people like me have been forced to be so meek, to hide ourselves for fear of harassment or hatred that we've never been able to push back against blatant unadulterated bigotry. this shit has gone unchallenged for too long.
It's really disappointing honestly how many people are coming here who could have had the potential to engage with me in a constructive way but were lied to and believed that lie uncritically.
You claim that I'm not a trans woman but here you are harassing me, smearing my name with lies over things I have never done, referring to me in ways I've said countless times make me uncomfortable. By my birth assignment.
If you really think I'm so different, why are you treating me the same?
You can't claim to be for the liberation of anyone if your activism includes determining that a person isn't human anymore because of who they are.
Utilizing the same mechanisms that hurt you, projecting those onto me, it doesn't do anything for you or any of us. If anything, it shows that if you were in the position of the oppressor you wouldn't have the self awareness to realize what you were doing. How can you only be compassionate suffering under the circumstances of your own marginalization?
