They/them but pronoun chaos is also acceptable. Mid-twenties and tired. Anarchocommunism, indigenous sovereignty and decolonization, queer and 2S rights. Some NSFW (18+).
The judge said the administration couldn't send Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador, but the administration claims his oral orders weren't "e
In a court filing a day after a federal judge demanded more information on over 250 people who were expelled from the United States to a Salvadoran prison under an extreme wartime power, the Trump administration continued to stonewall, insisting the judge had no right to request it.
The administration’s filing on Tuesday adds to an ongoing constitutional crisis in which the Trump administration is claiming extremely broad authority to arrest and remove people from the country without due process, based solely on unproven assertions of gang membership and claims that the gang in question is actually an invading army.
Over the weekend, hundreds of Venezuelan migrants were flown from the United States to El Salvador despite U.S. District Judge James Boasberg issuing an oral order demanding that any planes in the air immediately return to the United States.
The filing on Tuesday claimed that the judge’s verbal orders were “not independently enforceable as injunctions.” The administration also said it was not required to turn around the planes because “the relevant flights [had] left U.S. airspace.”
Boasberg, however, specifically addressed that argument in court Monday, saying his authority did not end “at the airspace’s edge.”
The new filing, signed by Attorney General Pam Bondi, also asserts that given an ongoing appeal, the government “should not be required to disclose sensitive information bearing on national security and foreign relations until that motion is resolved, especially given that this information is neither material nor time sensitive.”
A short time after the administration’s filing, Boasberg entered a new order demanding the administration answer detailed questions about two of three flights that carried expelled migrants out of the United States.
On Friday, Trump secretly signed a proclamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act, which allows presidents to arrest and deport noncitizens without due process during a declared war against, or an invasion of, the United States by a foreign nation. The proclamation was announced on Saturday.
The law has only been used three times previously, including against Japanese immigrants during World War II. Trump claims the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua qualifies as a foreign government that is at war with the United States.
Trump quickly faced a lawsuit Saturday from Democracy Forward and the American Civil Liberties Union. During a hearing that evening, Boasberg, chief judge in the federal district court in Washington, D.C., verbally ordered the administration to turn around any planes carrying people who had been expelled under the invocation.
“This is something that you need to make sure is complied with immediately,” he told Justice Department lawyers representing the Trump administration.
The administration did not abide by the order. Instead, it allowed three planes full of Venezuelan immigrants to the United States to land in El Salvador.
On Sunday morning, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, a key Trump ally, published a video showing those people being manhandled, having their heads shaved, and being sent to a notorious prison in the Central American nation. Bukele is imprisoning the migrants in the Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT, in exchange for $6 million from American taxpayers. The prison is widely known for its harsh conditions, extremely restrictive environment, and numerous prisoners’ deaths in captivity — and Bukele has said the migrants will perform forced labor.
Bukele also posted on social media mocking the federal judge. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Trump aide Elon Musk, and a White House spokesperson all amplified the post, with several people, including Trump and Musk, also calling for Boasberg to be impeached.
Rep. Brandon Gill (R-Texas) on Tuesday introduced articles of impeachment against the judge, saying he was “guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors and should be removed from office.”
Boasberg said in court Monday that it was a “heck of a stretch” to say the administration did not have to follow his oral orders. He had earlier demanded answers from the administration, which did not provide them in court, instead saying it was “not at liberty” to discuss “operational issues,” even though federal courts routinely deal with classified information.
The judge demanded more information in writing by noon Tuesday. The Trump administration claimed that “there is no justification to order the provision of additional information.”
However, the court filing on Tuesday did answer some of the judge’s questions. In an attached declaration, Robert L. Cerna, the acting field office director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Enforcement and Removal Operations division, said ICE understood that Trump’s Alien Enemies Act invocation took effect once it was posted on the White House website Saturday, though Trump had signed it the day prior.
Cerna also listed basic information about the three flights in question. Specifically, he singled out the final flight to El Salvador, which was still on U.S. soil when the judge issued his written order following Saturday’s hearing pausing Alien Enemies Act removals.
“The third plane departed after that time, but all individuals on that third plane had Title 8 final removal orders and thus were not removed solely on the basis of the Proclamation at issue,” Cerna said, echoing a claim the administration made in court. (Only 137 people were sent to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act proclamation, while the rest were removed under other federal laws, an unnamed White House official told The Washington Post on Tuesday.)
Cerna also gave general details about supposed gang members still in removal proceedings in the United States. “At this time approximately 54 members of [the Tren de Aragua gang] are in detention and on the detained docket, approximately 172 are on the non-detained docket, and approximately 32 are in criminal custody with active detainers against them,” he wrote. “Should they be transferred to ICE custody, they will likely be placed in removal proceedings.”
After the hearing Monday, the administration yet again called on the court to vacate its orders pausing the Alien Enemies Act removals. (It has separately asked an appeals court to step in and replace Boasberg as the judge overseeing the case.)
Trump’s decision “is a nonjusticiable political question,” the administration’s Monday night court filing — also signed by Bondi — claimed, adding: “Article II confers on the President expansive authority over foreign affairs, national security, and immigration.” The court’s orders, the administration said, undermined “delicate international negotiations to remove dangerous alien enemies, where even a short delay in removal can frustrate removal entirely.”
Multiple people — including immigration attorneys and family members — have come forward to say migrants who were expelled to El Salvador have no ties to gang activity, according to numerous reports. Some appear to have been singled out based on their tattoos, they say.
“In the absence of hearings, evidence, or any other feature of due process, it is 100% inevitable that innocent people will be swept into these mass deportations and will find themselves trapped in some of the most hellish circumstances imaginable,” observed Liza Goitein, senior director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice.
In a previous declaration filed with the court Monday, Cerna admitted that many of the supposed gang members do not have any U.S. criminal record. But he claimed that the administration’s “lack of specific information” about the immigrants “actually highlights the risk they pose.”
“While it is true that many of the [Tren de Aragua] members removed under the AEA do not have criminal records in the United States, that is because they have only been in the United States for a short period of time,” Cerna wrote. “The lack of a criminal record does not indicate they pose a limited threat. In fact, based upon their association with TdA, the lack of specific information about each individual actually highlights the risk they pose. It demonstrates that they are terrorists with regard to whom we lack a complete profile.”
Cerna listed a handful of criminal violations he said had been alleged against the removed migrants, including “an individual alleged to have committed murder.”
Cerna claimed “Agency personnel carefully vetted each individual alien to ensure they were in fact members of TdA,” but the administration has not released a list of people removed under the Alien Enemies Act.
The result, some fear, is an unaccountable system of arrest, expulsion and foreign imprisonment based solely on the president’s whims.
If you live in a red state/red district and have never contacted your Republican reps before, now is a golden time to start. Y'all know liberal talking points won't phase them, so you need to be calling/emailing and speaking their language. Demand to know why the Republicans are soft on crime with Trump pardoning the Jan 6ers. Demand to know why Republicans hate Christian values by their attacking the Catholic Church. Demand to know why your tax payer money is going to incarcerate illegal immigrants in prisons. Gulf of America? More like why not the Gulf of Lower Egg Prices?
Call them. Most importantly, speak their language.
This actually goes double if you live in a purple district btw. Republicans in swing districts are the ones in Congress living with the most fear.
Call them up and say, "Hey, I demand to know why my hard-earned tax dollars going to give illegal aliens three hots-and-a-cot when us real Americans can't even afford groceries!"
The more you're willing to speak MAGA, the more they're likely to listen.
If you have one of the super crazy reps - like, say, a member of the Freedom Caucus - my advice is to go with the, "Why the fuck did Trump pardon the cop killers?! What happened to Blue Lives Matter?!" angle.
You CAN also swing the church angle too. Any defanging of ICE is valuable. For example:
"Hello [MAGA CUNT HERE],
I am someone you represent in your district and I have been appalled by the anti-christian values of the actions of ICE. The church is a place of SACRED worship. I know they're here illegally but when they are worshiping our god in heaven they have a sanctuary in prayer, as they should by the teachings of the Bible. God houses all of his children. I'm not saying do not ensure they face the consequences of their crimes, but everything has a time and place and this is NOT it.
It would not be right for a priest to speak of what you've shared in confession, and it cannot be right to stop someone from their faith.
On top of this there are OTHER families present who are trying to worship. Even if the immigrants are not of your concern you are impeding the ability of people to simply attend and worship our Lord and Savior and for this I cannot stay silent, and for this I will not stand.
I have spoken with other members of our congregation who are here legally and are law abiding citizens and they have expressed similar sentiments so I know this is not just my own personal feelings but the feelings shared by our community built around our faith and love of our neighbors.
I look forward to your prompt response to this. Thank you."
And if you wanna get them a lil shook I recommend sending emails with different writing styles, or have other send them, that say about the same thing. A united community makes them concerned for their power if they don't actually hold any values and beliefs (i.e. them being a grifter) so it can make a difference to shake them that way. Internal division in number
Another Republican angle is the Business Conservative/Fiscal Republican. Trump sure likes spending money and Elon Musk has his hands in the fucking US Treasury.
But the most important tip:
Look up what committees your Senators/Representatives are on. Depending on what committees they're on is how you choose which angle to approach them. ESPECIALLY if they're the Committee Chair or Ranking Member.
Example: One of my Senators is, very tragically, the Zodiac Killer Ted Cruz. Ted Cruz is currently the chair of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, so you bet your ass I'm going to go the Business Conservative/Fiscal Republican angle. I'm also going to bring up the planned downsizing of the federal civil service when the FAA is already very understaffed and we just had two aviation disasters in as many days.
I'm not going to be rude. I hate his fucking guts so much but I am going to be very nice, polite, and even supportive. I will not tell him that if he died tomorrow, I'd drink to his death. I am going to be a nice, but deeply concerned, constituent and I might just lie and tell him that I voted for him last election. I might even buy some fucking stationary tomorrow and mail him a letter because those tend to be taken more seriously and get more attention than emails.
My other Senator sits on subcommittees that deal with issues like international trade and relations - DEFINITELY bringing up the tariffs with him - and on Intelligence, so I'll probably chide him for being willing to confirm Tulsi Gabbard.
Both the House and Senate have numerous committees and resources to find which ones your congressmen are part of.
Senate Committees and members
House Committees (you have to go through the committee sites to find your reps; usually it's easier to find your rep first and check their site - or Google - for the committees they're on)
When there was mass outrage over the economic impact of the government spending freeze the GOP actually pushed back and Trump reversed course and unfroze some of the funds. When we fight we win. But we gotta fight and fight hard.
Democracy is government of the people by the people and for the people and the people are its last defense. Everyone has a role to play. Stand up for your freedoms. What you do now will determine what kind of world’s future generations live in.
I'm an American doctor who provides gender affirming care. I routinely recommend KJB to my patients, especially now, based on your line, "What if you loved your country, but your country didn't love you?"
Four out of Five doctors recommend Kill James Bond!
also thank you for providing gender-affirming care o7
Donald Trump Is Not Joking About Annexing Canada: A Fucking Timeline
December 3, 2024: Trump's quip about Canada becoming 51st state was a joke, says minister who was there (CBC News 🇨🇦) <- This is when it could have feasibly been a joke
January 7, 2025: Donald Trump is quoted in a press conference directly stating his intentions to annex Canada (New York Times, timestamp 0:45 🇺🇸) <- This is where Americans should have stopped telling Canadians it's just a joke
REPORTER 1: Are you also considering military force to annex and acquire Canada?
DONALD TRUMP: No. Economic force.
February 7, 2025: Trudeau says Trump threat to annex Canada 'is a real thing' (BBC 🇬🇧) <- This is where the Commonwealth starts to take it seriously
Trudeau suggested Trump has floated the idea of taking over Canada and making it the "51st state" because he wants to access the country's critical minerals.
"Mr Trump has it in mind that the easiest way to do it is absorbing our country and it is a real thing," the prime minister said.
February 9, 2025: "Trump's national security adviser: 'I don't think there's any plans to invade Canada'" (NBC News 🇺🇸) <- CANADIANS NOTICE THAT THIS IS NOT A VERY STRONG DENIAL OF POSSIBLE MILITARY FORCE
February 10, 2025: Trump Confirms He’s Serious About Wanting Canada As 51st State (Forbes 🇺🇸)
Fox News host Bret Baier asked Trump whether Trudeau was right in telling business leaders the U.S. president’s threat to absorb Canada is a “real thing,” to which Trump agreed with Trudeau and responded, “Yes it is.”
February 12, 2025: ‘Trump effect’: How US tariffs, ’51st state’ threats are shaking up Canada (Al Jazeera 🇶🇦) <- This is where the rest of the fucking world outside America starts to take it seriously
February 18 2025: CBC releases podcast episode: "What if the U.S. invaded Canada?" (CBC's Front Burner 🇨🇦)
March 4, 2025: Canada Eyeing NATO Ally's Nukes To Deter Trump 'Threat': Candidate (Newsweek 🇺🇸), British nuclear weapons can protect Canada against Trump, says Trudeau party candidate (The Telegraph 🇬🇧)
“I would be working urgently with [European Nato allies] to build a closer security relationship… in a time when the United States can be a threat,” said [Canada's] ex-foreign minister and finance minister at the final Liberal leadership debate last week.
March 4, 2025: Prime Minister Trudeau: "What he wants is to see a total collapse of the Canadian economy, because that’ll make it easier to annex us” (CTV News 🇨🇦)
March 7, 2025: BC Premier David Eby: “We know the president in back rooms with Canadian officials has said he wants to redraw the border" (Global News 🇨🇦)
Eby: "If this president wants to annex Canada, he should save his breath to cool his soup, it is never going to happen.”
March 7, 2025: How Trump’s ‘51st State’ Canada Talk Came to Be Seen as Deadly Serious (New York Times 🇺🇸) <- This is where American news media starts to treat this as maybe possibly not a joke
March 9, 2025: U.S. Congress bill aims to prevent funding of invasion of Canada (CTV News 🇨🇦) <- This is where you should understand that military force is ON THE TABLE
March 11, 2025: Canadian opinion of U.S. falls sharply; 63% take Trump's threats 'very seriously' (National Post 🇨🇦)
March 13, 2025 (TODAY): Trump threatens to acquire Canada, Greenland while next to NATO chief (Global News 🇨🇦)
“To be honest with you, Canada only works as a state...This would be the most incredible country visually,” [Trump] said. “If you look at a map, they drew an artificial line right through it, between Canada and the U.S., just a straight artificial line. Somebody did it a long time ago, many many decades ago, and it makes no sense.” -Donald Trump
And hey, just for fun, let's contrast that with another quote:
First of all, I would like to emphasize that the wall that has emerged in recent years between Russia and Ukraine, between the parts of what is essentially the same historical and spiritual space, to my mind is our great common misfortune and tragedy...I am confident that true sovereignty of Ukraine is possible only in partnership with Russia. -Vladimir Fucking Putin, the year before launching an attack on Ukraine, which everyone also said he was joking about and definitely wouldn't do (2021 essay, Kremlin official website 🇷🇺)
I know you're overwhelmed, Americans, but please stop saying this is a joke. Canadians are anticipating an invasion, possibly within the year. This is not a fucking drill.
A draft of an executive order is reported to be circulating, intending to designate Fentanyl as a Weapon Of Mass Destruction
A copy of the draft was obtained and reviewed by The Handbasket.
Context: Fentanyl supposedly coming from Canada into the USA — a lie, very very little of it crosses the border in that direction, and quite a lot more in the other direction — has been one of the excuses given to justify economic attacks on Canada. Recently, someone close to Trump even claimed that Canada was « overrun by Mexican cartels », prompting Canadians to wonder if this was going to be used as the « WMD* » equivalent of an excuse for the invasion. We did not expect it to be the literal excuse. We live in the stupidest timeline.
*imaginary weapons of mass destructions were the excuse given to invade Irak.
The EO may be published as early as next week, the Department of State source tells me, but the timeline isn’t confirmed. The source speculates the purpose is a combination of designating fentanyl cartels as terrorist organizations and creating justification for conducting military operations in Mexico and Canada. They also suspect that it will be used domestically as justification for rounding up homeless encampments and deporting drug users who are not citizens.
CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVES RIGHT NOW AND DEMAND THEY DO EVERYTHING IN THEIR POWER TO STOP THIS!
Remember, Congress has the power to declare war NOT the president. Which means they have the power to give orders to the military. They can order the military NOT to carry out these invasions. Also, regardless of order the military should not follow illegal orders.
Every time I see this quote I realize how poor even very smart people are at looking at the long game and at assessing these things in context.
One of my favourite illustrations of this was in a First Aid class. The instructor was a working paramedic. He asked, “Who here knows the stats on CPR? What percentage of people are saved by CPR outside a hospital?”
I happen to know but I’m trying not to be a TOTAL know it all in this class so I wait. And people guess 50% and he says, “Lower,” and 20% and so forth and eventually I sort of half put up my hand and I guess I had The Face because he eventually looked at me and said, “You know, don’t you.”
“My mom’s a doc,” I said. He gave me a “so say it” gesture and I said, “Four to ten percent depending on your sources.”
Everyone else looked surprised and horrified.
And the paramedic said, “We’re gonna talk a bit about some details of those figures* but first I want to talk about just this: when do you do CPR?”
The class dutifully replies: when someone is unconscious, not breathing, and has no pulse.
“What do we call someone who is unconscious, not breathing, and has no pulse?”
The class tries to figure out what the trick question is so I jump over the long pause and say, “A corpse.”
“Right,” says the paramedic. “Someone who isn’t breathing and has no heartbeat is dead. So what I’m telling you is that with this technique you have a 4-10% chance of raising the dead.”
So no, artists did not stop the Vietnam War from happening with the sheer Power of Art. The forces driving that military intervention were huge, had generations of momentum and are actually pretty damn complicated.
But if you think the mass rejection of the war was as meaningless as a soufflé - well.
Try sitting here for ten seconds and imagining where we’d be if the entire intellectual and artistic drive of the culture had been FOR the war. If everyone thought it was a GREAT IDEA.
What the whole world would look like.
Four-to-ten percent means that ninety to ninety-six percent of the time - more than nine times out of ten - CPR will do nothing, but that one time you’ll be in the company of someone worshipped as an incarnate god.
If you think the artists and performers attacking and showing up people like Donald Trump is meaningless try imagining a version of the world wherein they weren’t there.
(*if you’re curious: those stats count EVERY reported case of CPR, while the effectiveness of it is extremely time-related. With those who have had continuous CPR from the SECOND they went down, the number is actually above 80%. It drops hugely every 30 seconds from then on. When you count ALL cases you count cases where the person has already been down several minutes but a bystander still starts CPR, which affects the stats)
That Vonnegut quote brings this particular moment to mind:
Yes, it’s just a pie. Yes, the pie itself doesn’t do much direct damage in the grand scheme of things. But the pie is resistance, and resistance inspires resistance. Resistance inspires survival. Throwing pies sometimes starts a movement. Throwing pies sometimes saves lives.
And of course, we haven’t spoken about the inherent morality of throwing pies at oppressors in a world where oppressors have outlawed pie throwing. At the very least, pie throwing is a reminder to the oppressors that no matter how much money they have, no matter how much power they have, there are still some people, some moments they can’t control.
I’d rather go out throwing pies than just rolling over and accepting that pie throwing isn’t going to solve anything. Yeah, the pie throwing doesn’t immediately solve the problem, but it doesn’t have to because it’s just a starting point. So throw the damn pie.
getting misgendered by adults but universally correctly gendered by children makes me feel like some sort of fairy creature thats true form is only perceptible to children
the more i read about transandrophobia as a concept from 'transandrophobia truthers', the more i just end up feeling like these specific experiences are better explained under things like 'gender essentialism' or 'oppositional sexism', or that at the very least these terms need to be brought into discussion of transandrophobia more, but they aren't.
a lot of transandrobros end up coming off like MRAs because they're trying to describe experiences that they don't have proper wording for, and then go on to speak in ways that clearly shows they haven't unlearned [internalized] misogyny/toxic masculinity, gender essentialism and oppositional sexism themselves. often because they haven't read any theory on the subject, and because a lot of them outright refuse to read up on transfeminist theory or understand transmisogyny as a systemic force outside of 'misogyny that trans women experience' or 'transphobia that trans women experience'. then they go on to try and talk over trans women about transmisogyny, or speak about trans women discussing transmisogyny in some extremely bigoted ways because of it.
like, the amount of trans women discussing transmisogyny who have read or even written entire books about transmisogyny, transfeminism and feminism in general seems to be astronomical compared to the amount of trans men discussing transandrophobia that i KEEP seeing. i've seen trans men who have read theory, but they seem to be the bigger popular bloggers that others base their opinions off of, if that makes sense. as if other people in the community are trying to theorize on what people who have actually read theory are saying, without reading any theory themselves.
so much of what transmascs experience is related to misogyny, but it's also related to gender essentialism, oppositional sexism, and toxic masculinity--all things which the trans community has taken from cisgender heterosexual society and applied it to themselves in a way that is Queer Inclusive This Time, yet they never question it.
i'm BEGGING transandrophobia truthers to read books about trans oppression, and to bring this language into your vocabulary when discussing your experiences. when i started doing that with my experiences as a butch on T, it gave me a new perspective on all of it, and the queer community itself.
The "lost lesbian" narrative matters and is anti-transmasculine because it necessarily argues that lesbians are inherently more valuable than transmascs.
It also argues that the living, breathing human beings who are exercising their bodily autonomy by transitioning are "lost".
The "betraying womanhood" narrative necessarily argues that transmascs are inferior to cis women, period.
These are proofs that 1) transmascs experience more gender based discrimination than cis women and 2) transmascs experience gender discrimination specifically directed towards their masculinity.
this is a great post on it's own, but I would like to also highlight where this rhetoric comes from as a rebuttal to the argument that "anti-masculinity toward transmascs is just misogyny, because women are expected to be feminine, so its not masculinity that is hated, it's the lack of conformity to femininity as someone societally seen as a woman." this is partially true, and butchphobia is very real and connected to this, but it's not the whole picture.
a LOT of this rhetoric comes from cis women who are attracted to masc women! these are people who actively like gender non-conformity in women! but once you go Too Far into manhood, it becomes a tragedy. i've heard over and over again from cishets and cis lesbians alike, "why do you have to be a man? can't you just be a butch woman?" "it's such a shame you want to start HRT, you're so attractive right now." in these instances, it is clear that it is not just a hatred of masculinity because it is gender-nonconformity, but specifically and directly because transitioning moves us closer to manhood.
Y'all hate trans men so much because we've created a version of masculinity that is not based in patriarchy. Trans men being born female but still being so masculine actively dismantles sexism.
Trans masculinity is so beautiful ♡ queer masculinity should be celebrated
Too many queers have it in their heads that feminity is peak queerness. That femme means safe and pure.
Trans men don't have to display femininity to be real queers. Let us be masculine and still recognize that we are radically queer.
If we can accept that there is more to femininity than what patriarchy offers, we can accept that there is more to masculinity than what patriarchy offers.
Because I was now a man, I could not speak about what it was like to be a woman. Because I had been a woman, I could never really speak about what it was like to be a man. Do the math: I could not speak. It was a double erasure, a double bind, in which every experience I had was false, and so nothing I said was credible. I could no longer derive authority from my experiences before transition, and shouldn’t even cite them — I had never “really” been a woman, so those things hadn’t happened — but those experiences could always be weaponized against me to prove I wasn’t “really” the man I claimed to be.
They call it erasure, when this happens. I wasn’t prepared for how literal the term was. Every day, I could feel myself disappear.
— Eraserhead: On writer's block and being a gender traitor by Jude Doyle
There are many good paragraphs but this stuck out the most:
"If “man” and “woman” are opposed and mutually exclusive categories, if men can only ever be predators and women can only ever be prey, then trans men can’t exist. We are logically impossible under the terms of the current system. You either “treat us like men” by voiding out half our lives, or you write us back into womanhood by denying our male identities. I knew all that, at least in theory, but when I came out, I actually saw my life story disappearing into other people’s blind spots. I watched myself become unthinkable in real time."
Also these:
"This wasn’t about accountability. This was people tactically forgetting my entire life,including incidents from my life they had personally witnessed or been involved in, so that they could shame me for transitioning. It was bad for me to be a man; if I was a man, I was a bad man, I was all the worst things men are. I was hulking, I was threatening, I was predatory, I was violent."
"I was treated as both genders, but only the most monstrous stereotype of each one."
Because that is exactly it. Anti-transmasculinity is being both erased and vilified, and then gaslit out of speaking about those experiences by the people who are erasing and vilifying you.
marginalized men: i don’t like jokes about hating all men. i recognize where they come from but they make me feel unsafe. the way im degraded for my manhood’s interactions with other identities doesnt mean that women have it easier, but i would also like to feel safe.
butch transmascs: yeah i had to fight for my masculinity to be accepted and am still struggling to find room in feminist spaces without having to be butch and trans and a man. i need that activism and i’d like my experiences to be considered by people in that space. i dont like being treated as a gender traitor or lesser now that ive transitioned.
dozens of bloggers on their way to get thousands of notes: i cant believe #notallmen is coming back. these people just hate women. intersectionality and solidarity is a distraction from real issues. women are facing these real problems while you guys primarily trans men and men of color are complaining about jokes.
Ppl in the notes getting confused because of the implication that cis women have privilege; it's because they're cis for one, and two, it's a good conversation to have that someone who can be perceived to be oppressed (being a women) can also have privilege (being cis) which is what intersectionality is. This also means that identifying someone as a whole as either oppressed or privileged does not work, and this mindset people have that someone having privilege is somehow a moral failing or makes them a "bad person" is absolutely ridiculous. It's even ridiculous when trying to ascribe this to the most cishet perisex able bodied white etc man you can think of but a lot of ppl aren't ready to have that conversation lol... (That ppl aren't evil because of how they identify but instead by their actions)
It can be hard for some people who are absolutely lost in the sauce to acknowledge intersectionality beyond the weird fetishistic idea of "you add more oppressed identities on to become The Biggest Victim Ever" and that someone having privilege is not a bad thing and does not deserve punishment or exclusion or otherwise. In the same way that someone lacking certain kinds of privileges does not mean they're somehow virtuous or have better morals and opinions. You cannot find the good guys and the bad guys by figuring out how oppressed they are.
an observation from several posts/conversations that could really help in avoiding a lot of misunderstandings: often when people talk about 'transmisogyny', they are using the term 'transmisogyny' to mean at least three different things simultaneously and conflating different meanings of the term in discussions. in general usage i've seen 'transmisogyny' used to mean:
transmisogyny-as-phenomena - i.e. 'transmisogyny' as a term for the intersection of transphobia and misogyny, a common feature of transfems' experiences;
transmisogyny-as-framework - in which transmisogyny is elevated to the level of a conceptual framework for understanding all transphobia. under this meaning everyone is encouraged/expected to conceptualise their experiences of transphobia through the lens of transmisogyny and run it through a filter of "how does this relate back to transmisogyny as the primary driving force for all transphobia"
on top of this both uses of the term are also conflated with the TMA/TME framework that divides people into two neat categories of those affected or primarily targeted by transmisogyny (transmisogyny affected, or TMA) and those exempt from transmisogyny and only accidentally impacted by it (transmisogyny exempt, or TME).
conflating all these meanings with each other is how you end up with soggy takes like "rejecting the label of TME is denying transfems the right to define and discuss their own oppression" which is a real thing that someone (transmasc) said to me. treating these concepts as all interchangeable meanings of the term transmisogyny contributes to a lot of the discourse and (frankly) animosity about discussions of transandrophobia, because when someone says something like "idk i just don't think transmisogyny is adequate as a robust framework for understanding how all transphobia works" or "dividing the world into TMA/TME is a flawed way of viewing transphobia and replicates the gender binary we're all trying to dismantle", that's a critique of transmisogyny-as-framework, but is read as a rejection of transmisogyny-as-phenomena, and thus is viewed as invalidating transfems' experiences.
add to that the fact that i've seen some people insist that transmisogyny is not just an umbrella term for the ways transfems experience transphobia but just means the intersection of transphobia and misogyny - but at the same time people insist that AFAB (trans) people are all exempt from transmisogyny by default and that our experiences should be discussed as 'misdirected transmisogyny'. which renders the de facto meaning of the term 'transmisogyny' an umbrella term for transfem experiences from which anyone not transfem is exempt.
the conflation of terms and definitions means any critique of transmisogyny or TMA/TME is taken as a denial of transfems' experiences. it also means that when transmascs propose a term like 'transandrophobia' - meaning the intersection of the identity positions of 'trans' and 'man', or more broadly a term for commonly-shared experiences of transmascs - that's read as an argument that all men are systemically oppressed for being men (it's not) and/or that transmascs are proposing transandrophobia-as-framework (again, not the case). but because 'transmisogyny' can refer interchangeably to both transphobic phenomena and experiences and a proposed conceptual framework for transphobia in general, the term 'transandrophobia' is misconstrued as a conceptual framework. we say "we've come up with a term to describe our experiences as transmascs" and people hear "you need to conceptualise all your experiences with transphobia in terms of the oppression of transmascs and centre our experiences in your discussions about your own marginalisation".
the reality is that most people discussing transandrophobia are not denying that transfems experience transphobia or denying that transmisogynistic phenomena happen. objections to the TMA/TME distinction are objections to a conceptual framework that treats all transphobia as just transmisogyny in a trenchcoat, and not a denial that transfems experience transmisogyny or are 'not oppressed' or whatever else.
for the record, i have no beef with transmisogyny either as a term for the intersection of transphobia and misogyny or as a term for shared transfem experiences. my critiques of transfeminst thinking are theoretical, namely:
transmisogyny-as-framework presupposes that the major driving force of all transphobia is a desire to target/punish trans women and that everyone else is caught in the crossfire. i don't think that's adequate as a conceptual framework because transphobia is better understood as a result of a gender-essentialist society punishing all non-normative performance of gender. it also relies on a lot of faulty assumptions about the transphobia that transmascs experience. transphobia experienced by transmascs is treated as a category-typical experience of transphobia (i.e. trans men get the 'just transphobia' version, whilst transfems get the 'transphobia plus' version)... but also transmasc oppression must be framed in terms of 'misdirected (trans)misogyny'. you can't treat trans men as having the most typical, 'basic' experience of transphobia whilst also insisting all transphobia is actually a form of transmisogyny misdirected at other trans people. those two positions are mutually contradictory. if all transphobia is actually about transmisogyny then transfems are getting the default transphobia experience and transmascs/trans nonbinary people/etc are all getting variations of that, not the other way around.
if you want to use transmisogyny as a framework for understanding all of transphobia, you cannot label anyone as exempt from transmisogyny. if transmisogyny is the proposed framework for understanding all transphobic discrimination of any trans person of any gender, then you are saying we all exist in a system of transmisogyny. therefore none of us are exempt from it. and if you're proposing transmisogyny-as-framework for all trans experiences, then all trans people get to weigh in on it, because you're applying it to all of us. i get to disagree with the framework being coercively applied to my experiences and i should be able to do that without being called transmisogynistic, because critiquing a framework you're asking every trans person to submit to is not synonymous with hating on trans women or denying their lived experiences or saying they're not oppressed. you can't insist that transmascs are TME by default whilst also insisting we only ever discuss our experiences as 'misdirected transmisogyny'. and you definitely can't label all transmascs as exempt from transmisogyny whilst simultaneously insisting we use transmisogyny as the conceptual framework within which we understand our oppression. that's trying to have your cake and eat it.
the TMA/TME framework is just reinventing binary gender but with extra steps. especially since in practice determining whether someone is TMA or TME seems to involve an awful lot of focus on people's assigned gender and what genitals they were born with.
a lot of this theorising follows a very radfem pattern of dividing everyone into two gendered categories, labelling one of those categories to Privileged Oppressor Class, and then heavily policing who gets to belong to the Oppressed Victims Class based on their genitals and socialisation. at which point you're just doing TERFism from the other direction. any framework that proposes we can understand gendered experiences in terms of a strict binary is automatically throwing intersex and nonbinary people under the bus. a comprehensive theory of trans experiences must have space for nonbinary identities and intersex experiences otherwise it is incomplete.
i'm making this post in good faith and i'm not denying the impact of transmisogyny on transfems. but i do think theorising around transmisogyny and TMA/TME as a framework have a number of flaws and i'm not going to use those frameworks to talk about my own experiences because they are theoretically inadequate. a robust theory of transphobia and trans experiences must have room for all trans experiences within it, as well as overlapping experiences of gendered oppression such as intersexism, misogyny, butchphobia etc. TMA/TME ain't it.
I wonder if Julia Serano is aware of the level of weaponization against other trans people Whipping Girl is used for and if she'll do better and wider research in the future to prevent this from happening again.
Because, her position is a result of transmisogyny and overcorrection, as well as transandrophobia and exorsexism. She is held aloft, untouchable by the masses as an overcorrection in reaction to transmisogyny, an acceptable, agreeable white woman who tells people what they already believe and want to hear about the experiences of others. This is not healthy for anyone, even the experiences of white transfems who transition from masculinity to femininity. What if their experiences do not match hers? Will anyone listen if one woman's book is used as an explanation of the entire transfem experience and they do not agree? From what I have seen: No. These transfems and trans women are instead forced to fall in line or are chased out of transfem and trans woman spaces, much akin to how cis women gatekeep feminine and women's spaces based on more factors than what is in your pants in practice. I am seeing the exact same behavior of gatekeeping femininity as I did growing up as a girl- and I do not think that should be gender affirming behavior.
Because trans men and transmascs are seen as too worthless to have a voice or too intimidating to deserve being listened to (parts of transandrophobia and anti-transmasculinity), her voice is elevated even though she is flat out wrong about experiences she assumes and denies about them. She is only given this voice because trans men and transmascs are not listened to about their own experiences, so she is free to be as wrong as she would like about them. She and her work is tokenized to excuse the perpetuation of bigotry.
The same goes for nonbinary people- but with an extra step of transmedicalism in her beliefs. "Subconscious sex" is no different than "gendered brains" misinformation in function. You know, the misinformation that is used to claim intersex and nonbinary people are not real and equates gender to sex? What conservatives like Blair White and those who say they support trans people, but only those who are binary and gender-conforming use as proof of their support. "Binary-phobia" is a laughable concept when you look at how often exorsexism is around us and you speak to nonbinary people.
I see how people treat her as similar to how I treated Milo Yiannopoulos as an alt-right kid. I treated his word as god on the queer community experience. "He's a gay man, so he must know what he's talking about with trans people and everyone else." Idolizing him as a token gay I agreed with at the time. I suggested his dogshit book to people, especially my enemies who weren't going to read it. Whipping Girl is being treated the same, to the point where "Read Whipping Girl" said to you is something basically considered a common rite of passage if you disagree with transradfems or TIRFs.
The point is, Serano's position is granted to her through bigotry and she has the responsibility to dismantle that. It's clear that the revisions and new editions do not do enough to undo the harm her work has done to other trans people and how it is used to beat us into submission to agree with a text that is inherently transmedicalist and exorsexist. I personally believe the book should no longer be printed or in circulation and instead a new book published. What she is doing is equivalent to someone saying their transmisogynistic post is only able to be apologized for in reblogs and never deleting the original malinformation/misinformation/disinformation, thus still allowing for it to spread. Now, I'm not going to advocate for it to happen, though, because that is a choice she would have to make herself. All I can hope is that she changes her views on her writings and actually talks to the people she writes about or mentions.
If you're taking the word of one white woman's experience on the genders of others as word of god, I think you have a lot to work through on how you see others having the right to be the sole person to define their own experiences. You clearly don't trust anyone to know themselves more than a stanger does- the same kind of body autonomy removal and dictatorship of someone's experiences parroted by transmedicalism and transphobia as a whole.
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