Most of my friends and community are trans, nonbinary or TRAs. I love them but they are all so delusional. I just want community with other WLW who don't hate themselves.
An Immutable Internal Reality: the Trans Belief System
BUSH01: Lesbian Bush Studies
Dr. Bush Propaganda
PDF LINK (GOOGLE DRIVE) / READ ON SUBSTACK
PREFACE
Well, I have finally cracked the code on why gender critical feminists and trans people seem to be speaking two different languages in the same conversation. I have achieved an understanding of their thought process (I think), and now I will share my knowledge with you. It's a lot of information, but I encourage you to suspend your disbelief for the next few minutes.
My intent with this write-up is not to disprove the beliefs I'll be laying out, but to understand what they represent inside the cultural vacuum of the trans community, and to critique how these beliefs relate to modern-day societyâin both their formation and their outcomes. As such, I'll be using widely-accepted trans terminology throughout this write-up to maintain consistency.
By sharing what I've learned, I hope to concentrate feminist discussions on more precise misogynistic dogma that has infected the cultural zeitgeist. Knowledge is power, and not only knowing, but understanding the logic of our oppressors better equips us to dismantle it.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
METHODOLOGY
DISCLAIMERS
REDEFINING THE IMMUTABLE
1. GENDER
1.1. APPLICATION
2. SEX
2.1. APPLICATION
RELIGION VS. REALITY
1. SEX AS A SOCIAL CONSTRUCT
2. TRANS PUBERTY
2.1. AâPASSINGâ PHENOMENON
3. THE THIRD SEX
4. FEMALE PRIVILEGE
4.1. TRANS MEN
5. AN OPEN CLOSET
CONCLUSION
METHODOLOGY
I chose various trans-specific subreddits as my avenue of research due to the uncensored nature of the platform, the specific categorization that subreddits provide, and the precise discussions that happen on individual posts. Reddit as a platform represents a database of thought and opinion, with popularity of these opinions determined by the voting/award system. This system streamlines the collection of the standard belief-set held by the trans community on Reddit, which can then be used as ideological representation of the broader community.
I based my choices on two determining factorsâvarying degrees of popularity, and diversity of opinionsâto receive a more comprehensive representation of the general trans viewpoint. However, these determining factors only served to widen the data net and prioritize inclusivity, not to impact my conclusions. My intent with this choice was to prevent inaccurate conclusions that might arise from a limited data pool.
My method of choice for determining the popularity of the beliefs Iâll be discussing relied on a three-step process:
1.) Most Upvotes.
The comment must be one of the most top-voted comments on a post.
2.) Educational Value.
The comment must provide some form of explanation that aids my understanding of the belief in question.
3.) Commonality.
The similarity of the comment to other popular comments.
For this write-up, I prioritized comments from self-described academics, clinicians, and individuals with secondary education. I also chose comments that provided the most clarity for me.
DISCLAIMERS
Trans people are not a monolith, and not all trans people agree with the ideals I detail below, so any generalizations I use are made for simplicity's sake.
I will be using quotes taken directly from various trans subreddits to supplement my thoughts, though I will not be providing any links to the subreddits, posts, or users in question. The purpose of laying all this information out is not to encourage further division, but to encourage a different approach within gender-critical feminist discussions.
With all that being said, my commentary should not be treated as fact. I strongly encourage you to do your own research and form your own conclusions. Hopefully what I've written here can help to bridge the ideological gap so you're better equipped to decipher common trans beliefs.
REDEFINING THE IMMUTABLE
Before I delve into analytical discussion, I must redefine sex and gender as they align with the trans viewpoint. In order to accomplish this goal effectively, I will use quotes taken directly from the subreddits I mentioned earlier, then rephrase each explanation in simpler words.
This topic is the basis for all other aspects of their belief system, and is the catalyst behind many arguments and misunderstandings. As such, this section will be quite long, due to the large amount of information needed to properly contextualize and re-establish these terms in order for them to sound sufficiently reasonable to gender criticals. Future sections will expound on the ideas outlined here, in order to effectively represent the trans position.
1. GENDER
All of these quotes replicate the grammar and spelling of how they were originally written.
Generally speaking, gender identity entails self-appraisal according to the traits most often associated with one sex or the other (called gender traits), and these can be influenced to some degree by cultural norms.
Basically, gender is real, but it's a subjective experience, and the term we use for the visible ways people signal that subjective reality
There are natural clusters of bodily identification and attributes with a sense of embodiment and chosen presentation of inner experiences, and many of those correlate with sex assigned at birth and the culture one lives in.
Gender: The unobservable sexual characteristics, the internal mental model of a personâs own sex, and the way that they express it.
Gender is part social construct, part learned behaviors, and part biological processes which form very early in a personâs life.
Indeed, these are all cultural factors: things which have developed within the population over time. Regardless of being essentially âmade upâ, they are still strongly gendered and a person tends to connect to the gendered habitus of their internal self without even realizing they are doing it. When we are denied access to those social aspects, this results in discomfort with oneâs social position in life.
According to these quotes, gender does not have a clearly-definable definition due to its intangible nature, but there is one commonality that unites all these definitions: gender is immutable.
To simplify these beliefs, let me explain it like this. Gender is just as real as sex, and while feelings of gender are subjective and internal, those feelings are expressed in outward presentation based on traits that align with someoneâs target gender (either the same or different, cis or trans).
In other words, gender is oneâs chosen aesthetic presentation that reflects their internal reality. It is an immutable feeling that is fixed for life, that has been there since birth, but is often repressed due to the prevalence of transphobia in society, and influenced by external factors such as culture.
1.1. APPLICATION
For now, I will focus less on analytical critique, and more on re-contextualizing common gender arguments through the trans viewpoint.
Male Socialization does not exist as an observable phenomenon due to trans women possessing an internal female soul. Furthermore, any male is a potential trans women suffering from internalized misogyny, and the gendered soul takes precedence over biology due to gender representing oneâs true self.
This argument also applies to male violence. Men who have not yet discovered their gender still experience life through an immaterial understanding of womanhood, which means the misogyny that permeates society still affects them, and they project that internalized misogyny onto other women. Remember: there is a trans woman lurking inside them, not a man.
Trans Man Privilege uses the same logic. Trans men, though outwardly female, move through life with an internal male soul, which provides them with a privileged mindset typical of cis men even before transitioning.
Gender is no longer a social construct, but a fixed internal reality that can be influenced by cultural norms. Different cultures assign different traits to each sexâgender traitsâso trans people have different transition goals depending on the culture they are most exposed to. Given that gender is entwined with sex, transitioning gender often involves transitioning sex.
2. SEX
âSociety doesn't agree on the exact definition. but it's pretty universally in medical dictionaries. The biologic character or quality that distinguishes male and female from one another as expressed by analysis of the person's gonadal, morphologic (internal and external), chromosomal. and hormonal characteristics.â
âsex is NOT immutable. not since 1954 and Christine Jorgensen. people's bodies can be rebuilt through hormone therapy and surgery. the binary question is even more ludicrous, intersex people have existed since the dawn of time. it's not just one thing, either, there are over 70 different ways in which one can be legitimately "neither". for example, someone with xy chromosomes who is born apparently female. several different ways this can happen.â
âIt boils down to trying to determine that women are exploitable functions of nature and men are "real humans". Until trans people came along, there was no assertions of biological male and female, there was just the predator class and the slave class. Trans people, by threatening the implicit logic of this hierarchical framework (nobody says "biologically blue eyed") by demonstrating it is absolutely possible to switch between upper and lower class, have instituted a reassertion of this hierarchy, that it is fixed and cannot be interrupted. Trans people thereby, must be punished by being put into an even lower 3rd class, as this is the only means society has to deter us from demonstrating that this hierarchy is, actually, biologically bullshit.â
âFor purposes of understanding the neurobiology of sex, it is helpful to think of genotypic sex as largely immutable, phenotypic sex as modifiable (by developmental processes, hormone treatment, and/or surgery), and gender as a more complex construct that is determined culturally as well as biologically.â
âIt's not biologically accurate as a phrase because all secondary sex characteristics come from sex hormones. Which is almost all sex characteristics (primary sex characteristics are your genitals, which produce hormones). And you can change your sex hormones, thus changing those secondary sex characteristics. That is, in effect, changing your "biological sex".â
âPersonally I'd say this applies even if you've hormonally medically transitioned but haven't had bottom surgery. Hormones play a huge part in all body system and clinicians need to start taking that into account. This is my opinion as a clinician myselfâ
The redefinition of sex is the most important to understand for re-contextualizing the trans viewpoint.
In this case, sex is an observation forced upon everyone at birth that can be changed at will through transition. Hormones primarily determine a personâs sex due to the part they play in changing âalmost allâ sex characteristics, so by taking opposite-sex hormones, trans people effectively become their target sex.
Genitalia has no bearing on defining sex, because hormones have already changed a vast majority of secondary sex characteristics, and also because they are not immediately visible to society. Chromosomes are not a factor because nobody can physically see them.
Just like gender, sex has a million different definitions with one thing in common: perception. Sex is no longer determined by overall biology, but only by the characteristics that are immediately visible to others. This is why the only type of sex characteristic that matters to trans people is secondary sex.
2.1. APPLICATION
As above, I will re-contextualize sex-based arguments using the trans viewpoint.
Sex-based oppression does not exist due to oneâs perceivable sex being modifiable. Regarding misogyny, all those who suffer from it experience an immaterial, internal feeling of womanhood. This means that trans women who have not yet transitioned still suffer from misogynistic oppression, and that trans men have technically never experienced misogyny despite being female.
Since sex is modifiable, sexual orientation must then be determined by the immutable characteristic of gender. This is where âgenital preferenceâ makes an appearance, since experiencing the internal reality of womanhood/manhood does not require female/male genitalia, and the concept of sex hinges on secondary sex characteristics unrelated to genitalia. Thus, homosexuals who would not interact with opposite-sex genitalia are exaggerating their preferences to justify their own transphobia.
To go even further, gender becomes a characteristic that determines oneâs sex. As established above, gender is not a social construct, but a complex category that affects which sex you align with (or everything in between) and establishes your gender as either cis or trans. This idea entwines closely with the sex you feel most comfortable as, and whether or not you develop the urge to change it.
Though sex is seen as modifiable, transitioning does not require sex-related biological processes to be functional. For example: infertile women are still women, and women without periods are still women, then trans women have the right to occupy those categories due to their lack of female organs. That does not mean they are men, but that they exist as women with valid medical conditions.
RELIGION VS. REALITY
The discrepancies in this belief system have tangible consequences on a society that embraces it as fact.
From this point on, I will be delving into my full analysis, with a focus on dissecting the real world context that surrounds these beliefs. I also want to question the application of these beliefs in regard to the many logical flaws that contradict sex-based societies.
1. SEX AS A SOCIAL CONSTRUCT
When trans people consider themselves male/female according to their target sex, they are discussing the ways in which they are socially perceived. Minor differences in trans vs cis women/men are inconsequential to outward perception, given how this perception can be limited through various means.
Within this framework, sex is the oppressive social construct because it is something repeatedly forced upon you by society via visual perception and aesthetic characteristics. Gender is your true self because it is 1.) not bound by the limits of rigid biology, and 2.) not determined by your physical state of being.
Trans people equate these societal perceptions to internal biology, and insist that, by changing the sex you are perceived as, you are literally changing your DNA. Equating these two concepts outright erases the ways in which female oppression manifests from internal organs, namely menstruation and pregnancy.
The issue that arises from this belief system can best be described as cognitive dissonance. The acknowledgement that sex exists as an observable biological category must be bastardized to align with immutable gender, specifically the belief that gender either qualifies one for, or omits one from, misogyny.
This is why the trans community believes so strongly in the prevalence of transphobia. A society that dismisses the entire concept of gender as a facet of the immutable internal self erases the existence of trans people, which would theoretically count as an act of "genocide" enacted on oneâs internal sense of self. It is not about physically murdering them, but about eradicating gender as a metaphysical reality, which trans people require the existence of in order to be recognized as trans.
The fixation on upholding gender constructs, as well as the inability to empathize with cis women who view gender as a tool of oppression, becomes a logical conclusion when accepting this belief system. You must reject any form of oppression or privilege that relies on sex if you believe that sex can be changed, and that a trans identity relies on the existence of gender.
Sex, when viewed through the trans lens, centers around the disordered thinking that stems from gender/sex dysphoria, and the obsession to be perceived as oneâs target gender/sex while denying all other internal biological factors. This seems to be a coping mechanism designed to eliminate the distress of dysphoria, that one is required to believe if there is any hope of getting relief. However, this belief system does not work when applied to real world situations, especially those that affect large groups of people, because all societies on earth decide who to oppress based on sex, not gender. The small minority of trans people who pass will never experience the full effects of privilege or oppression, because they can never truly replicate an opposite sex biology.
During my research, I noted the words of many trans men who did not have the luxury of pretending that their internal biology did not matter, who were down-voted into oblivion for reminding their peers of the reality that female bodies endure oppression, no matter the pronouns or identity. Of course, trans women had to explain why they actually had it worse, as if any form of misogyny a trans woman experiences is not experienced by cis women also, and to a more severe extent given the biological reality of actually possessing female organs.
The existence of trans men serve as a threat to trans women, by reminding trans women that their loophole into female oppression via gender identity does not actually reflect on the reality of how society operates. This is why trans men must be silenced. Why they must be painted as the oppressors. By speaking their truth, they add foundational cracks to the trans belief system.
2. TRANS PUBERTY
âPeople dont understand transitioning is puberty and puberty takes a long time. it makes you look odd, you don't get boobs right away, you don't get Body hair right away, you get odd smells in places you didn't expect, your mind is scattered because the hormones makes thinking a ittle skewed. sometimes hormones dip and rise unexpectedly. your genitals are doing crazy cooky things you didn't have beforeâ
While conducting my research, I observed a common pattern of transition being likened to puberty, though instead of representing a phase of sexual development in adolescents, this context re-defines puberty as a phase of biological changes that occur during transition. Cis puberty involves biological processes triggering sexual maturity based on oneâs sex; trans puberty involves the shift of secondary sex characteristics that align with oneâs target sex.
Asserting that biological sex can be changed by taking hormones typical of the opposite sexâand that these changes occupy the same purpose as puberty, instead of their reality as unnatural side effectsâfails to recognize detransition as a possibility. When many trans people stop hormone replacement therapy, they experience various levels of sex characteristic reversion in the bodyâs attempt to return to its natural state.
Even with sex reassignment surgery, the patient has to actively, consistently prevent complications, reversals, and outright rejection of any change that defies oneâs original biology. It is this rejection that solidifies the existence of original sex as an unchanging immutability. The bodyâs original sex has already been predetermined by hard-coded DNA inside each individual cell.
If oneâs original sex could be fully overwritten via HRT and SRS, then trans people would not experience side effects as a result. The body would, instead, adapt to these changes on a multi-system scale. We would see bone structure shift, genitalia morph, organs created out of thin air. The changes forced through medical intervention would be permanent.
I am aware that long-term hormone therapy can cause individuals to retain some secondary sex characteristics, but we must recognize thatâin the vein of the trans argumentâcis people can exhibit these same characteristics as natural variations and/or conditions of their original sex. Some women have deep voices, some men have bare faces. Both sexes can possess bone structure or fat distribution typical of the opposite sex. Sex variations are not strictly confined to the trans identity or HRT, and implying otherwise to fit a narrative only serves to misrepresent the reality of sex variation as we know it, and ostracizes many people who do not fit the trans ideal of what female or male should look like.
The trans community insists that changing sex is entirely possible, and yet, retaining those changes requires consistent monitoring and treatment. Thus, they are not changing anything, but are instead temporarily entering a variation of their original sex that said sex is already capable of. Plastic surgery only changes the aesthetic look of a chosen feature, but as we have established many times, aesthetic is what determines which sex one is allowed to claim.
2.1. A âPASSINGâ PHENOMENON
There is a conversation to be had around âpassingâ as a concept of hypocrisyâthat trans people who do not pass are seen as their original sex, which has no implications for retaining the privilege or oppression of the sex they are viewed as. Instead, failure to pass must only be observed through the context of an individualâs mental distress.
While non-passing trans women experience homophobic ricochets due to being viewed as a gender non-conforming man, their perception as male still provides them with privileges that women are not privy to. Similarly, non-passing trans men still suffer from female oppression, and often lesbophobia, due to their perception as gender non-conforming women.
To piggyback off of my previous explanations, the current refusal to acknowledge that trans identities exist within a predetermined social framework offers a strong explanation for every contradiction present within the trans belief system. Groups within a society must be analyzed through the context of that society. Ignoring the existence of social factors that trans people are subjected to, for the sake of exacerbating the oppression they face, serves to intellectually pervert the core tenets that they believe in.
A very simple solution for this involves acceptance of their actual status in society, and the reality that their sex does, in fact, determine the privilege or oppression they live withâeven if these concepts are variable depending on the societal structure in question. For example: passing trans men gain access to social male privilege, but still suffer in male-favored medical settings due to their female biology, which may leave deep impacts on health that cannot be prevented through current scientific means.
3. THE THIRD SEX
As seen from the quotes above, the trans community views sexed terms as prescriptive, not descriptive, due to their belief that biological sex is little more than your body's outward aesthetic that can be changed as you see fit. When intellectually operating on the "aesthetic" nature of all secondary sex characteristics, the original sexed function of their bodies does not matter. Additionally, the immutable existence of chromosomes means nothing when intersex people do not strictly fall under a two-chromosome category; purely aesthetic genitalia that lack any biological function does not matter when cis (read: female) people struggle with infertility.
Making these false equivalencies serves the purpose of weaponizing people who already experience discrimination wholly unrelated to trans-adjacencyâexperiences compounded by the antecedent oppression of intersexism and misogyny. These comparisons fail to recognize the nature of these conditions as medical disorders, requiring specific treatments to compensate for atypical biological functions and the health issues these irregularities cause.
It is also pertinent to mention that a person experiencing atypical features of their biological sex does not make them an entirely separate sex. Treating them as anything other than a natural variation of their sex encourages the stigma that alienates them, as if their inability to exist within the rigid confines of biological determiners disqualifies them from the sex they physically align most with. This âthird sexâ category, commonly used by the trans community to argue in favor of trans people being included in categories that they do not meet the criteria for, contradicts their own belief that being different does not exclude a trans person from identifying as their target sex.
Asserting that gender is an immutable facet of the inner self, that sex can be changed, by using examples of conditions that require sex-specific forms of care is a disingenuous false dichotomy. Intersex variations and infertility are fundamentally different to transition because these conditions are not determined by gender. In fact, these conditions exclusively happen on a biological level, as a result of either: sex development, or ovulation/sperm issues.
While some intersex people experience gender/sex dysphoria as a result of their condition, this dysphoria is not commonly caused by a total separation between mind and body, but a result of sharing characteristics with both sexes. Regardless, intersex people are not another species, so they are capable of having dysphoria the same as any other person, despite how their experiences are manipulated to supplement a faulty narrative. Treating variations of sex as proof that sex does not exist, or that it exists on a spectrum, completely ignores the scientific fact that intersex variations explicitly coincide with sex, and are diagnosed based on the sex of the individual. In medical settings, isolated gender/sex dysphoria is treated differently than intersex variations for a reason: because they are different conditions.
You cannot only support biology and medicine when it benefits you, then denounce it when it proves you wrong. You cannot claim that science is biased against trans people, then use scientific studies to supplement your argument that sex is not binary. You cannot claim that sex does not matter because it can be changed, then admit that your biological sex actually does matter in a medical context.
4. FEMALE PRIVILEGE
Given everything stated previously, I can confidently say that trans people view gender as the true determiner of oppression, even though global society has always used the biological reality of male and female sex to oppress women in ways specific to the female body. They often explain away this disparity by claiming that society has been transphobic since its inception, and all forms of oppression originate from transphobia.
Remember, the current belief system dictates that gender is an immutable internal reality. As such, the millennia-long reliance on sex as the sole determiner of gender roles, oppression, and privilege has effectively erased what makes someone trans in the first place: the concept of gender. This erasure gives credence to the idea that transphobia is the foundation of all other oppression through the following thought process: gender is not recognized as a material internal concept, which means trans people are not acknowledged on the basis of their transness, which means trans people cannot identify themselves as trans, which means trans people are not allowed exist.
The insistence on asserting that gender is the true determiner of oppression, despite centuries of history that prove otherwise, calls into question the underlying motives of the trans community. Replacing sex with gender will not suddenly eliminate sex as an axis of privilege or oppression, but will erase the ways in which women can describe how female oppression manifests. Meanwhile, women will continue to suffer for being born female.
This phenomenon is the Oppression Paradox. Trans women who believe they are the most oppressed due to their gender identity still benefit from privilege within the framework of sex-based societies because they are male; but due to their beliefs, they view those privileges as confirmation of their extreme oppression.
These beliefs are the basis of female privilege. Not only do cis women have the privilege of being cis, but their female state is one that they did not âearnâ like trans women have to. Cis women take their womanhood for granted by claiming it oppresses them. Cis women who resent their female organs are entitled due to their cis privilege, because trans women would kill for the chance to be born in a female body.
Since sex is modifiable, female oppression is viewed as self-victimization, a state that women willingly stay in. On the contrary, trans women transition to align their outward sex with their internal womanhood. The reality that their sex does not match their gender leaves them at an inherent disadvantage in society, and the compounding oppression of womanhood and transness situates them below cis women on the oppression ladder. Trans women are punished the most for not only disproving the sex hierarchy, but for relinquishing their status in the superior (male) class to become a second class (female) citizen.
A partial quote from the second section perfectly summarizes this thought process: âIt boils down to trying to determine that women are exploitable functions of nature and men are "real humans". Until trans people came along, there was no assertions of biological male and female, there was just the predator class and the slave class.â This belief purposefully omits the fact that society has always used sex to determine predator/slave class categorization. The use of female and male in this argument reads as an attempt to misrepresent the truth, due to how womanhood has, until recent years, been used to identify the group of humans that belong to the female sex. But for the sake of this personâs argument, they have superficialized the language that defines misogyny (âhatred of womenâ) to erase the intrinsic connection of femaleness to misogynistic oppression, for the purpose of redefining oppression on the basis of gender identity.
Women are not oppressed due to identifying as women. âWomanâ has always been used as a noun to describe a female human, as exemplified by its etymology, and explicitly correlates with biological sex. When societies from two hundred years ago were oppressing women, there was no confusion as to which group of people were affectedâit was always the people with female biology. And no matter which subclass men fell into, or other forms of oppression they faced, or how feminine they presented themselves, these men still possessed power over women, specifically the women who shared the same oppression.
And yet, societies of the modern day reject the historical reality of female oppression, because asserting the belief that gender identity has always determined oppression accomplishes three important tasks:
It invalidates all historical accounts of female oppression, which erases conclusive evidence that identifies female people as the original, unchanging, de facto targets of misogyny.
It reframes centuries of feminist progress as inherently transphobic, which insinuates that the rights given to women violate the rights of another, more vulnerable oppressed group, which provides a basis for rescinding these rights.
It removes womenâs ability to define female-specific, sex-based oppression that still permeates society, and prevents women from resisting both: further regression in womenâs rights, and new proposals of female subjugation.
Think of âfemale privilegeâ rhetoric as a feedback loop. Trans women consider themselves the most oppressed group; society enabling this belief reinforces it as fact; cis women who argue otherwise further solidifies their transphobia and cis woman privilege; the existence of cis woman privilege re-establishes trans women as the most oppressed.
But this loop can only exist due to the very long history, and current resurgence, of female oppression. If cis women actually had privilege over trans women, then trans women would not have been allowed access into womenâs spaces. Trans women would have been denied acceptance into the lesbian identity. Trans women would not have been immediately lauded as the most oppressed group to ever exist, the arbiters of womanhood and lesbian sexuality, superior in every way to cis women. If trans women faced the same oppression as cis women, they would have been silenced, subjugated, and shunned after bringing awareness to the issues they faced. Instead, they were immediately accommodated, listened to, politically prioritized. Their protection has become a staple of the recent cultural zeitgeist.
While trans people have existed far beyond the modern day, trans rights activism as a political movement only reached mainstream status a decade ago. Over this last decade, society has undergone reconstruction of major foundational structures. These were not simple band-aids or shallow solutions, but a deep-rooted dismantling of how society functionsâfacets of society that women fought centuries to obtain, gone in ten short years.
During these ten years, women have continued to suffer for being born female. And trans men, despite their gender identity, are not exempt from this crushing reality.
4.1. TRANS MEN
I routinely see the narrative that all these inclusivity privileges were actually given to trans men, and that transphobes are simply misguided in blaming trans women. Erasure of female-exclusive terms? Erasure of female-exclusive spaces? Erasure of sex from homosexuality? Trans men were the true catalyst behind those changes. Due to their immutable internal reality, they benefit from male privilege.
(However, male-exclusive language and spaces and sexuality have remained untouched, which creates a glaring discrepancy in this claim.)
According to trans people, they already feel like their target sex, but their biology does not represent that. Any reminder that they do not align with their target sex triggers the severe emotional distress of dysphoria.
If trans men are the cause behind this erasure, why is it not happening to cis men? Why are men as a sex class not called "penis-havers" to be inclusive to the men who don't have penises?
Since trans people just want to be seen as their target sex, trans men allegedly use their male privilege to make the language of their original sex inclusive, instead of their target sex. They want to be seen as men despite having a vagina and a uterus, so they campaigned to erase all mentions of women from medicine.
Could it possibly be because trans women are the catalysts behind this erasure? Surely, nothing could be more dysphoric than seeing the word "women" used as shorthand for female-genitalia-possessors. After all, trans women don't even align with manhood, so why would they care about how men are defined?
Let me reiterate: gender does not equal sex or genitalia, and the misalignment between sex and gender is what causes sex/gender dysphoria. So what seems more likely: that the gendered term of "woman" must be erased to instill biological inclusivity, or the gendered term of "woman" be erased to instill biological reality?
In order to maintain the falsehood that trans women are oppressed and trans men are privileged, this group contradicts the very belief that their claims of oppression center around: internal gender is their true self, and reminders of their biological sex give them dysphoria.
The supposed oppression that everyone claims trans women face directly contradicts the reality of all their demands being accommodated. Trans men do not get the same privilege, because society still views them as female. Thus, the declaration that oppression is determined by gender debunks itself if this reality is acknowledged.
The only group that benefits from this ideological shift is misogynistic men. The oppressor class. Whether through the belief of gender or the reality of sex, all female people have been silenced by an imaginary female privilege we supposedly have. And any attempt to refute this claim is treated as proof of its existence.
Trans men are subjected to:
Extensive abuse, as a result of female biological stereotypes.
Lesser privileges in contrast to trans women, due to the legitimate risk that cis men pose to them.
Routine silencing, which mirrors the treatment of cis womenâspecifically cis women who experience another form of oppression.
The trans community provides explanations for these circumstances as they exist within the confines of the groupâs tenets. Respectively:
Trans women experience more abuse than trans men, which makes the suffering of trans men a less pressing issue.
Trans men are responsible for all the demands made by the trans community, and those demands have been met thanks to trans menâs male privilege.
Trans men are not silenced, but view not being centered as a form of oppression, similar to cis men.
The rhetoric that fuels this abuse stems from manipulation of pre-established ideals: normalized female oppression, women's (justified) hatred of men, and the trans belief system. But I would argue that these ideals only serve as a vehicular smokescreen with which to translate trans womenâs ulterior motives into a more palatable dialogue that society is already accustomed to.
Let us refer back to the previous section, as the arguments presented there will be expounded on to describe the link between trans men and misogyny.
I have already established the discrepancy in how âfemale privilegeâ translates to real life, but female people who occupy a trans identity (trans men) experience a compounded version of this. Most notably, society holds those who forfeit their privilege for oppression in higher regard than those who seek an elevated status from their original oppressed classification. Trans women who abandon their male privilege can be used to reinforce the status quo of female subjugation; trans men who seek male privilege threaten to dismantle the most integral oppressive structures of modern society.
If oppressed groups could opt out of their oppression, then the dynamic of Predator and Slave would cease to exist. The privileged would lose their power, which they cannot allow to happen. The most logical solution relies on controlling the narrative by manipulating the masses. Sound convincing enough, and people will believe anything as fact, even if that narrative contradicts their own eyes and ears. Especially if that narrative depicts a subjective identity that transcends the realm of tangible perception.
Trans women, by definition, belong to the privileged group. Thus, they benefit from further female subjugation, whether through the continued oppression of female people or the recent insistence that female people can have privilege over their oppressors. Either way, their position of superiority over cis women does not change, no matter how often society claims otherwise.
5. AN OPEN CLOSET
In a world where sexual orientation is no longer determined by sex, homosexuals suffer more than anyone due to the pre-existing oppression of homophobia.
An âopen closetâ is referring to the experience of homosexuals as it relates to the concept of gender. While homosexuality is more accepted in the modern day, homosexuals must once again hide the true sex-based nature of their sexual orientation to prevent accusations of bigotry and the far-reaching consequences of being labeled a bigot. In essence, they have been shoved back into the closet, but a more insidious, more progressive form. One that they are technically free to leave, but will result in severe social consequences.
This topic is a complex one, complete with many compounding factors. Given all that I have explained thus far, I will summarize the most basic points before delving into analysis. To begin, let us determine the trans-inclusive beliefs regarding homosexual identity.
Where homosexuality once described individuals exclusively attracted to the same sex, the biological sex requirement has now been replaced with gender identity. Seeing as sex is now modifiable, and attraction is pre-determined, then sex cannot be used as a reliable marker of attraction. Gender, on the contrary, is unchanging. So while sex can be altered to match oneâs attraction, gender cannot.
Of course, there is the obvious counterargument that transition cannot perfectly replicate characteristics of the opposite sexâcharacteristics that contribute important aspects of sex-based attraction. Also, humans do not have sex via internal feelings of gender, no matter how immutable they may be.
I would like to offer my own counterargument surrounding the subjectivity of gender, and the variable process of transition.
Given that gender identity has no clear determiners, and people can express their gender in endless ways, there are no definable boundaries of what constitutes âwomanâ or âmanâ or ânonbinaryâ or every other gender label. And in terms of same-gender attraction, the only requirement for inclusion involves oneâs self-labeling that aligns with a target gender expression. For example: âlesbianâ has undergone a rebrand to replace female with non-man. This means that anyone who does not identify as a man is a lesbian, which leaves an infinite amount of possibilities for physical appearance, and for the qualities that contribute to lesbian attraction. This creates a scenario where literally everyone can identify as a lesbian, which undermines the entire point of specific labels.
Trans women who thought they were cis men five hours ago qualify; trans men who thought they were cis women five hours ago do not qualify. Transmascs qualify, but would not qualify if they instead chose the âtrans manâ label with no other changes taking place. Nonbinary AMABs with full masculine presentation and no interest in transition qualify. Cis femme lesbians qualify.
So I ask: what are lesbians supposed to be attracted to if the only determiner of a lesbian identity is self-labeling and internal feeling? What are the markers that contribute to lesbian attraction, if lesbians can supposedly be attracted to everyone? How is this system supposed to work in practice? Most importantly: why are heterosexuals not forced to define their sexual orientation by internal identities?
This change promotes âinclusionâ only for the benefit of non-homosexual women, at the expense of explicit, attraction-defining boundariesâwhich is the opposite of how sexual orientation operates in the real world.
Sexual orientation, sexual attraction, and sexual intercourse all center around biological sex, and these facets of human sexuality are exclusionary by design. Unfortunately, these exclusions cause issue when an excluded category feels entitled to those belonging to a specific sexual orientation. Case in point: male people and female homosexuals, and the formerâs widespread attempts at turning the latter group straight.
Pretending that homosexual women can experience attraction outside of the same sex serves not only to protect the male ego, but to convince actual homosexual lesbians that repressing their sexuality is a moral obligation. That their bodies are a battlefield where political progress is made. That they carry the burden of trans acceptance between their closed legs. That they no longer have the choice to refuse when transfem lives are on the line. That they are objects of validation, fetishistic gratification, and political weaponry.
Sexuality is a very personal, very vulnerable aspect of human existence. For homosexuals, these feelings are exacerbated by the constant shadow of homophobia, and how simply existing acts as a resistance against oppression. As a result, homosexuals celebrate their sexual orientation, and have developed a sense of pride surrounding their natural attraction to protest attempts of homosexual erasure or conversion therapy.
Similar to the history of female oppression, homosexuality has never been persecuted on the basis of an internal gender reality. No gay man has ever been put to death for engaging in penis-in-vagina sex. No lesbian has ever been imprisoned for kissing a male person. It is the explicit act of two people of the same sex engaging in sexual intercourse that homophobes condemn, that gives homosexual relationships their âunnaturalâ label.
This system specifically targets lesbians due to their status in society. Their existence as homosexuals categorizes them as inhuman, and their female biology categorizes them as objects. When you combine these forms of oppression, the result is lesbophobia. Lesbians are denied access to personhood, and are viewed as objects created for the purpose of sexual gratification.
The unique circumstances of the lesbian identity leaves them vulnerable to further mistreatment, with no protection from society at large. Gay men, on the other hand, still retain male privilege despite their sexuality, which protects them from widespread erasure. As a result, gay men still retain their culture, their terminology, their spaces, and most importantly, their exclusivity.
Lesbian opponents often weaponize their status as the oppressor sex class, which plays the largest role in the erasure of sex from homosexuality, and explains why lesbians have been disproportionately targeted. Trans lesbians are quite common within the community, and while many date other trans women, many are also attracted to cis women. There are also bisexual/pansexual trans women, arguably the majority of the group, who obviously date cis women.
But the most important factor that contextualizes this issue lay in what makes a woman trans in the first place. Being male, and the socialization that accompanies it. No matter the sexuality, male people learn early on that female people are owed to them in ways that do not include sex: nurturing, teaching, caregiving, childbearing, emotional support, submission, etc. This mindset is established long before a male person begins transition, and yet we are led to believe that ingrained misogyny disappears once trans women discover their transness. All this time, their misogyny was actually internalized, even though expressing misogyny from a place of male privilege likely caused tangible harm to women.
Even though their determination to force female homosexuals into having sex with them proves that they retain the mindset of male entitlement and male supremacy. Their entitlement stems from the inability to take rejection, specifically sexual rejection, which is common among the male population.
Rejection itself occurs on an individual basis, but is rooted in the sexual orientation shared by a larger group. For example: a lesbian rejects a man because she is only attracted to female bodies, but the connotation of a lesbian label provides a shorthand explanation that does not need to be stated. âSorry, Iâm a lesbian,â is sufficient enough context to infer the reason for rejecting his romantic/sexual invitation.
The act of a woman rejecting a man opposes the intended female purpose in a misogynistic society. It is a display of independence, of choice that women only recently gained the right to. Unfortunately, men are still taught that women must submit to them, women are not allowed to say no, women do not own the right to their own bodies.
In order to stifle this recent phase of feminist independence and re-establish womenâs second-class role in society, the obvious decision is to target the only sexual orientation that excludes male people entirely, that is defined by the female sex, that lack both the numbers and reputation to successfully gain support from other members of society.
Considering the prevalence of homophobia, even in the modern day, and the recent resurgence of misogyny, installing another era of conversion therapy with lesbians in its sights took little effort to popularize. After all, society never stopped hating either category that lesbians occupy.
Lesbians personify the unattainable. Forbidden fruit. The ultimate sexual obstacle. Men fantasize about turning lesbians straight because making a woman defy her nature is seen as conquering her. Her humiliation and debasement at the hands of a man is the entire point.
With this in mind, the insistence that âlesbians love girldickâ has brought the corrective rape fantasy to the mainstream, and lesbophobic societies have accepted it as fact.
âTechnically most trans people are bi, but society is still very homophobic against gay/bi trans people especially wrt trans lesbians. Idk if you've noticed, but a lot of stereotypes abt trans lesbians run pretty close to older stereotypes abt lesbians in general. There used to be a lot of fearmongering abt lesbians in the locker room- now there's a lot of fearmongering abt trans women in the locker room (specifically w the assumption of attraction to women). The 'predatory lesbian' and 'lesbian who becomes obsessed w straight woman' 'lesbian who stalks women' 'lesbian who tries to BECOME the woman she's obsessed with' and 'lesbian who tricks and tries to turn straight women' were all very common tropes in 1980s-90s media (as well as before/after). It seems like a lot of transphobia is an updated even more extreme form of homophobia. It's hard to talk abt this, since most of society still sees trans people as gay along the lines of assigned sex.â
The trans belief system insists that transphobia is an exacerbated form of homophobia, despite acknowledging that most of society still views trans people as gender non-conforming homosexuals. Which would make homophobia the actual form of oppression that trans people experience. Which directly opposes the argument that transphobia is an exacerbated form of homophobia, since they are not being persecuted by society for being trans, but for assumedly being homosexual.
As seen in the quote above, this system co-opts homosexual suffering and purposefully omits the true reasoning behind these homophobic justifications, in order to misrepresent homosexual stereotypes and falsely apply their consequences to trans women. Also known as: the questionable cause fallacy. Trans women being the subject of past lesbian stereotypes does not mean that trans women experience an âupdatedâ form of lesbian oppression.
As the arguments surrounding these beliefs continue to do, an integral factor has been omitted from the conversation: the proven threat that men pose to women. Lesbians have been demonized for their homosexual attraction to other women, despite zero actual evidence that verifies these claims when compared to women of other sexual orientations. Trans women, on the other hand, must reckon with their adjacency to the male sexâan association made due to the lack of identity gatekeeping.
As hurtful as it is, the trans communityâs willingness to erase all barriers-to-entry for trans identities means that men with predatory motives now have a direct path to vulnerable women. When women have no way to identify these men as dangerous, an experience discussed at length over the last few decades, they have no choice but to prioritize their safety and assume every male person is capable of hurting them.
The solution is not to shame and blame women for preventing their own victimization, but to address the epidemic of male violence that often targets women. Blame the group that commits the vast, vast majority of every type of violence, instead of their victims.
CONCLUSION
To those of you who made it to the end, thank you very much for reading my attempt at a research paper. Just to make my intentions clear, Iâm aware that scrolling Reddit isnât actual research or science, and nothing about this constitutes evidence of anything. God forbid a woman adds a little whimsy to her 8,000 word infodump in the form of a pretentious presentation.
I hope this write-up sufficiently explained the trans belief system, and that my analysis provided you with some argumentative clarity. I spent three weeks on this to ensure thorough dissection of every topic addressed. Had a lot of fun stretching my brain muscles.
I've been through some awful break-ups but nothing like this bullshit. I feel so damn disrespected, it's unreal. I don't see how there's any coming back from this.
I learned about the murder of Kitty Genovese in two separate psychology classes, at two separate universities. It was studied as an example of the âbystander effectâ, which is a phenomenon that occurs when witnesses do not offer help to a victim when there are other people present.
I was told by my professors that Kitty Genovese was a 28-year-old unmarried woman who was attacked, raped, and brutally murdered on her way home from her shift as manager of a bar. I was told that numerous people witnessed the attack and her cries for help but didnât do anything because they âassumed someone else wouldâ. Nobody intervened until it was too late.Â
What I was not told was that Kitty Genovese was a lesbian who lived more or less openly with her partner in the Upper West Side and managed a gay bar.Â
Now⌠is it likely that people overheard Kittyâs cries for help and ignored them because they thought someone else would deal with it? Or, perhaps, did they ignore her because they knew she was a lesbian and just didnât care?
Maybe thatâs not the case. Maybe it was just a random attack. Maybe her neighbours didnât know she was gay, or didnât care.
But itâs a huge chunk of information to leave out about her in a supposedly scientific study of events, since her sexuality made her much more vulnerable to violent crimes than the average person. And itâs a dishonour to her memory.
RIP Kitty Genovese. Society may only remember you for how you died, but I will remember you for who who were.
I also never knew this about Kitty Genovese, but I do know that, in fact, many of the dozen (not thirty-eight) people who witnessed some part of the attack (which took place after 3AM, on a chilly night in March when most peopleâs windows were closed) tried to help in some way.
One shouted out his window for the attacker to leave her alone, which did successfully scare the man off temporarily.
Another called the police but, seeing her still on her feet, said only that there had been a fight but the woman seemed to be okay.
And when Kitty Genovese was finally attacked in a vestibule where she couldnât be seen from outside, Karl Ross, a neighbor, saw what was happening but was too frightened himself to go to her rescueâso he started calling other neighbors to ask what he should do. Eventually one of them told him to call the police, which he did, and the woman he called, Sophie Farrar, rushed out to help Kitty even though she didnât know whether the attacker was gone.
Kitty Genovese died in the arms of a neighbor who tired to help and comfort her while they waited for the police and ambulance to arrive. Kitty was in fact still alive, although mortally wounded, when the ambulance reached the scene.
The man who saw the final stabbing? Who panicked and called other neighbors first instead of the police? The man who said, infamously, that he âdidnât want to get involvedâ because he was reluctant to turn to the police for help? He was thought to be gay himself. He was a friend of Kitty and Mary Annâs. After being interviewed by the police he took a bottle of vodka to Mary Ann and sat with her, trying to comfort her.
So, no. I donât think the evidence indicates that Kitty Genoveseâs neighbors let her die because she was a lesbian, because Kitty Genoveseâs neighbors tried to help.
See also: Debunking the Myth of Kitty Genovese (The New York Post)
A Call for Help (The New Yorker)
(Also, going by the content of the murdererâs confession, it was indeed a random attack.)
how on EARTH was this âscientificallyâ studied but the details gotten so wrong and the wrong as hell conclusion published and taught in schools?!?!?! where were those scientists observation skills?! on vacation?!
How to take facts and turn them into an urban legend that gets taught in schools: Make a bad made-for-t.v.-movie about it, watch it, believe everything the movie says, annnnnnnd go! Thatâs how it gets taught as this supposed âscientific study.â Someone got fucking lazy.
A book about this, âNo One Helpedâ: Kitty Genovese, New York City, and the Myth of Urban Apathy, won the Lambda Literary Award for LGBT Nonfiction this year! if anyone wants to check it out try your local library!
I want to add one crucial but telling detail: the story about the 38 witnesses didnât come out of nowhere, it was handed to the New York Times City Editor by the Police Commissioner in order to distract said editor from asking unwelcome questions about a different case, and the story that was eventually written and which made headlines was almost entirely composed from police sources.Â
At the time, the NYPD was coming under quite a bit of criticism about rising crime rates and the seeming ineffectiveness of the policeâs response to the problem. In the Kitty Genovese case, even though people did in fact call the police, it took about an hour for them to show up and the first detectives didnât arrive until three hours later (at which point they mostly spent their time interrogating Kittyâs girlfriend about their relationship, because for âsome reasonâ they considered her to be the most likely suspect for the murder. In fact, the police wouldnât catch the actual killer until six days later when he was picked up for having a stolen TV in the trunk of his car, at which point he admitted to having committed a total of three murders). Itâs not an accident that one of the things to come out of the Genovese case was the establishment of the 9-1-1 system, because at the time that the attack happened, you had to call the specific number of a particular police precinct and it was up to the duty sergeant on the desk to take action - which was usually to send someone out from the precinct to the address reported, because cops on foot patrol wouldnât be outfitted with two-way radios for several years.
Itâs more than a little convenient that at a time when the NYPD is coming in for public scrutiny about its ability to do the basic job of responding to reports of crimes in a timely fashion, the Police Commissioner happens to hand the City Editor of the cityâs most prominent newspaper a story which puts the blame for the slow response on the apathy and inaction of New Yorkers, neatly absolving the NYPD for its ridiculously poor performance in this case in particular and its response to the rise in crime in general.Â
Itâs also quite telling that the New York Times ran with the story the way they did. Itâs not like there werenât people on the scene who said they had called the police, or that the basic facts about how many witnesses there were and what they had seen didnât match the account that the commissioner had given. The writer the Times sent out chose not to include this information because âit would have ruined the story.â The Times wanted to frame the story as a narrative about how the root of NYCâs problems was urban apathy and anomie - and the news organizations that picked up on the Timesâ reporting and made the Kitty Genovese case a national and global story wanted to frame the story as proof that NYC was a dangerous urban jungle that deserved its decline because of the bad character of its residents.Â
I think the takeaway from this case isnât just about sloppy scientific research, itâs that you have to always consider how official narratives are used to assign blame to specific individuals and groups and absolve larger institutions of responsibility.Â
just stumbled upon the WiT (Woman is This) website. in 2021, the collective did an international survey with three thousand female participants about the impacts of gender ideology on women's mental wellbeing. the participants were also encouraged to leave responses expounding on their thoughts.
this survey is so compelling, and the eighty-eight questions are broken up into their own seperate topics. some of these are:
lesbian erasure
misogynoir
misinformation
personal anecdotes
i strongly recommend looking through this website if you have the time. this is amazing insight into a topic that nobody really gives a fuck about. i can't believe it's been five years and nothing has changed.
I'm gonna read this properly later but the misogynoir section is fire:
RESPONDENT COMMENT: âEquating trans inclusiveness to inclusion of black women in womenâs spaces is one of the most racist acts Iâve witnessed in this debate. It underlines the fact that these people do NOT consider black women âwoman enoughâ and they see womanhood as a performance of white femininity rather than a state of existenceâ.
RESPONDENT COMMENT: âThe way they use colonialism and slavery as the reason there is binary view of the human sex in other cultures is plainly offensive, as if they could not have developed an explanation of the world based on facts if the Westerners were not to have âimpose itâ. Do they know that there are countries that were never colonised and have a binary concept of sex too? I guess they donât care.â
RESPONDENT COMMENT: âI believe it is manipulative & dishonest of TRAs to appropriate others struggles to prop up their ideology.â
RESPONDENT COMMENT: âGender identity ideology is a predominantly white and western ideology. International organisations are participating in a cultural and linguistic imperialism.âÂ
The timeless question of What is a Woman has eluded men for centuries. Listening to some of the leading thinkers and brave gender pioneers o
This is a 30 minute film about MtF transitioners. I would not advise watching it before bed, but I do think it's an important watch. Be warned - this is very NSFW, 18+, and gross!
My blog gets lots of lurkers from curious thoughtcrimers who are trans allies and trans men, but are starting to question some parts of it - I think it's a particularly important watch for that demographic. I remember seeing this while in the process of desisting in 2022 or 2023 and it made some things I had been denying undeniable.
feminism âruinsâ everything because it makes you think. it stops you from blindly following anything. when i see myself in the mirror and my eyes are distracted by my acne or my crooked teeth or asymmetrical eyes, my brain starts recalling The Beauty Myth or Susan Sontagâs essays on beauty in On Women. with that, i can no longer stare at myself and see genuine imperfections meant to be fixed but rather i am allowed to confront the actual reason i see these imperfections in the first place. when i find myself or others being too quick to judge a woman and ignore the manâs wrongdoings, i think of Woman Hating and acknowledge these judgements. when i habitually refer to everyone as âguysâ, i think of Invisible Women and recognize the default male in my language. when i start feeling lost and am tempted to fall back into religion, i think of the excerpts i read from When God Was A Woman and remember everything âJesusâ and âGodâ stole from us.
feminism gets tiring and frustrating because misogyny is everywhere. from language to behavior, misogyny just lingers in the air. and feminism forces you to acknowledge its presence instead of trying to shoo it away. and as much as it hurts sometimes, it never fails to help me grow. what i was blinded to yesterday, i see clearly now. i donât have to let patriarchy run my life, i donât have to lay under menâs boots and cry. i can be the change i want to be in the world and i am capable of doing the things my ancestors wouldâve loved to have the freedom to do. especially being a black girl, the freedom i have now is not something i can take for granted. those women before me fought tooth and nail with everything they had for me to be here.
I would be so much happier if I could just turn off my brain. But I'm tired of living in la la land and validating delusions in the name of "acceptance".
tangentwithtanner
ellievsbear
snowghoul
