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@spinningglobeofmoltenrock
PFP from theprideful. Description: Glitched version of the trans flag. /End. Can be found here.
Header from Ember Belrad. Description: Intersex inclusive progress pride flag made up of images of space taken by NASA. /End ID.
I’m just making descriptions. Start shit in my notes you will get blocked. Be nice you can stay.
While reading this, I beg that people keep my last post about this subject in mind. I do not think Julia Serano was a bad person, or should not have written her book. But I highly doubt after this post anyone will be accusing me of being soft on whipping Girl. Because on this episode of Lily talks shit about whipping girl, it is finally time to tackle the big one. And the conclusions I am going to draw are damning.
I am going to start with this comment on my last post that I think expertly nails down the particular issue with whipping girl, where all the problems stem from. I am not going to cite the person who wrote it because I guarantee this post is going to generate a lot of hate and I want to put as many steps as possible between seeing this and harassing that person, but if you wrote this know I think you are great.
I am going to be less kind about it than the above comment. Julia Serano came up with a social theory that explains the experiences of Julia Serano and then decided that was reflective of all of reality, which she then insists on very vehemently without any consideration of other points of view. She makes light of any prejudice people experience that isn't easily explained by her theory and outright denies and erases prejudice people experience if it is inconvenient to her theory.
I don't think she even accurately represents trans women (even most trans women) as a group. Her theory certainly does not line up with my experience as a trans woman, and the way she makes light or dismisses things that don't fit in her theory is honestly kind of offensive.
As written in whipping girl, her perspective is myopic, her conclusions unsound, and her thinking biased.
I would like to reiterate at this point I don't think she is a bad person, and there is a lot of good in whipping girl. Mainly when she is talking about her own experiences and resists the urge to extrapolate to what that means for other people. And from what I have seen she has improved significantly in the last twenty years. Like I said in my last post, be very critical of a person's words, be as generous as possible with the person.
She fucked it up bad with Whipping Girl, but that doesn't mean she has nothing of value to say or she is a bad person or she can't improve or anything like that. What it does mean, unfortunately, is that many key elements of Whipping Girl are critically flawed and steeped in bias. And even more unfortunately, its the most important parts of the book.
In particular, the section where she coins transmisogyny. To read the whole section, start at the part titled "Trans Woman Manifesto". It is too long to cite in it's entirety here, but this is the part where she actually coins the term transmisogyny:
"When a trans person is ridiculed or dismissed not merely for failing to live up to gender norms, but for their expressions of femaleness or femininity, they become the victims of a specific form of Trans Woman Manifesto discrimination: trans-misogyny. When the majority of jokes made at the expense of trans people center on “men wearing dresses” or “men who want their penises cut off,” that is not transphobia—it is trans-misogyny. When the majority of violence and sexual assaults committed against trans people is directed at trans women, that is not transphobia—it is trans-misogyny. When it’s okay for women to wear “men’s” clothing, but when men who wear “women’s” clothing can be diagnosed with the psychological disorder transvestic fetishism, that is not transphobia—it is trans-misogyny. When women’s or lesbian organizations and events open their doors to trans men but not trans women, that is not transphobia—it is trans-misogyny."
The thing to notice about this section is that transmisogyny is coined almost entirely in terms of comparative oppression. Its not just that trans women experience qualitatively different oppression, it is, according to her, they experience the worst oppression. The most jokes, the most violence, etc.
As it is coined in Whipping Girl, transmisogyny is defined by comparing oppression. That is the central point. And I think this is especially driven home by what she says immediately proceeding her coining the term:
"While trans people on the female-to-male (FTM) spectrum face discrimination for breaking gender norms (i.e., oppositional sexism), their expressions of maleness or masculinity themselves are not targeted for ridicule—to do so would require one to question masculinity itself."
A statement I have called out in the past for being ignorant and completely divorced from reality. This is one of the major points where she outright dismisses the oppression of others because it is convenient to her theory. This is so important to her defining transmisogyny that it immediately proceeds it. What is the single most important thing she wants in your mind when she defines transmisogyny? What does she choose to be the thing that frames the definition? Her assertion that trans men don't have it as bad.
This is really fucking bad.
The context required to understand why comparing oppression, especially in a very hard way like this, is so bad is the stuff of entire books worth of theory.
It is in fact so bad that I don't even know how to explain how bad it is. It is too big a subject to get across in so brief a format. It is the sort of thing you can only do safely with very, very careful consideration, probably something only an expert should do with a lot of careful qualifying statements, and the rest of us should just avoid it completely. Anyone who has studied exclusionist movements of the past 60 years will understand that comparing oppression is always a pillar of exclusionist movements. Disabled communities warn against this, and specifically consider it prejudice to compare "how bad" different types of disability have it. The autistic and neurodivergent communities warn against it. We have special, insulting terms for the prejudice comparing oppression results in ("Playing oppression olympics", for example.)
You don't and shouldn't have to take my word for it. But I can't meaningfully demonstrate it any further here. Go study this on your own if you need more context.
And I don't even think her definition of transmisogyny rests on sound facts. If we include the immediately proceeding statement about trans men, she makes six statements. Of those six, the statement about trans men is just pain prejudice on her part, the statement about trans women suffering the most violence we know isn't true (though it could be argued it was the best information she had at the time), and the idea that women can wear men's clothing shows a deep lack of understanding of recent feminism. Women (in some parts and cultures of the USA, because that is the very narrow view we are actually talking about here) are not allowed to wear mens clothing because masculinity is seen as better, but because feminists fought long and hard to make that a reality. Bias, ignorance, and dismissing the reality of the situation to better fit her theory are in full display in these three statements.
I would even argue that the statements about jokes and who is allowed in queer spaces are questionable in how lightly she addresses what are very complex issues, and that she is assuming much. I would argue that the only thing in the entire section that is not questionable is the second statement:
"When a trans person is ridiculed or dismissed not merely for failing to live up to gender norms, but for their expressions of femaleness or femininity, they become the victims of a specific form of Trans Woman Manifesto discrimination: trans-misogyny."
Now I don't think we should throw out transmisogyny as a term, it has evolved since then. But I do think that we have been dealing with the fallout of such a disastrous coining of the phrase ever since.
Understanding how transmisogyny was coined in Whipping Girl explains a lot about the behavior of people who have based a lot of their understanding of the trans woman condition on Whipping Girl. I am going to highlight two such things.
First off, there is an enduring hatred from many trans women towards any effort of trans men who speak out about their own oppression, especially when they try to create terms to use for themselves.
If a core part of the definition of transmisogyny is that trans women have it the worst, specifically in comparison to trans men, then someone trying to coin a similar term for trans men is directly challenging and attacking the very concept of transmisogyny. For example, if "transandrophobia" is, as many have said, "like transmisogyny, but for trans men", then they are incompatible terms under this understanding of transmisogyny and transfeminine as a whole.
People who understand transmisogyny as "trans women have it worst" see transandrophobia, a term that seems to mirror transmisogyny and is even sometimes explained in those terms, then they assume "transandrophobia" asserts that trans men have it worst. And since only one group can have it worst, this means they see transandrophobia, or any attempt to coin a conceptually similar term, as a direct attack on the idea of transmisogyny. This quickly becomes a deep and enduring belief that any trans man talking about their issues is making a direct attack at the concept of trans femininity. It becomes of overwhelming importance to establish an us and them and to establish who has it worse (TMA vs TME). And it becomes necessary to drive out anyone who would challenge the narrative they believe is so important.
And so an exclusionist movement is born.
The second consequence I want to talk about is the way that this kind of belief necessitates the flattening of trans women into fitting into the Julia Serano model. Trans women who do not fit this mold, who do not agree, who are not like Julia Serano, are excluded and silenced for going against the dominant narrative.
That covers trans men and trans women, but I know it hurts other trans people just as much, but I don't think I understand enough to explain why and how. I am sorry for that, but understand that this is incomplete without talking about how this contributes to other prejudices, especially exorsexism.
A lot of people believe it is psyops driving a lot of trans infighting. I think it is simply a matter of prejudice born of bad ideas taken to their logical end.
[Image ID: Tumblr tags reading: I have read bits and pieces of whipping girl (I should sit down and read the rest slash all the other sections but can't be assed to atm), in the context of being a sociology student interested in seeing what kind of theory is popular,
(start boxed tags) and my take away is that while the writing is really strong in showing off her own experience with transmisogyny and analysing it, anything that has to do outside of that specificity fall short really badly, and you can tell she doesn't have a background of social sciences even if she cites a few peeps in that background, she is very locked into her pov and doesn't even try to see what other's could be (end boxed tags) ashe has a whole paragraphe ttalking about how gender non-conformity is celebrated while gender conformity is punished, which is just not true even in the context of when she published that, she has a lot of biases in her writing which is something that happens and she be interrogated, but within the book they aren't, dear god they aren't, (and note if i'm judgy it's more of the writing itself than the person), when looking at my old notes my summary of how i feel about it is that, it's a good starting point ; she only paint one side of the trans issue; if she does it w/out discrediting the other side it'd be great /End ID]
potentially controversial but i don't think "male sexuality is inherently predatory (and so if you don't want to be predatory, you're probably a girl)" is a winning feminist take. i actually think it's exactly the opposite and we should really be avoiding the implication that predatory misogynistic behavior is biological and not social in nature
this is just “boys will be boys” used to defend misogynistic behavior under the assumption it’s biological and not a choice resulting from misogyny never being socially punished, but with a coat of paint on it to sound woke
socialized behavior argument aside i just also do not think this is true beyond shitheads who are obviously not representative of the general population. some boys just had good parents idk what to tell you
this is one of those things where it’s like, “damn that sucked and shouldn’t have happened to you but it does seem like you’re turning your bad experience into political beliefs and you can’t be doing that”
Would argue that one's ability to be a good person doesn't depend on having good parents, but otherwise, yeah.
And every time I see a guy (cis or trans) who talks about how he's just so scared of accidentally intimidating a woman, I just wanna rescue him like some kind of a creature from a wildfire.
Also sorry its just DEEPLY dehumanizing to act like even misogynistic cis men truly have no internal emotional or relational depth beyond "seeing women as fleshlights."
Like, on top of what OP is saying, I feel like people take misogynists at their word about their desires way too much. I would say its not just that misogyny isn't socially punished, but that misogyny and toxic masculinity are the only conceptual tools many cis boys & men have to make sense of their internal and external experiences.
There are a lot of cis men who would insist they just want to get laid and engage in sexual objectification of people they see as women, who do have genuinely negatively feelings towards women, while also having genuine desires for connection and emotional fulfillment that they are processing through a deeply patriarchal worldview, which is constantly reaffirmed by their environment as the only real way to see the world and the only meaningful way to navigate their experiences.
Which is not to say that cis boys treating people they see as women as disposable sexual objects doesn't happen or doesn't matter. But the idea that if you have any more internal depth to how you view yourself and your relationship with sexuality in the privacy of your own mind, that makes you fundamentally different than all the cis boys who "just see women as fleshlights" obscures how this kind of behavior and perception of others actually arises.
And then on top of that, its bioessentialist and such an insane overgeneralization that if you actually believe this, I am begging you to interact with more / a broader variety of cis men. If your stated intention is to genuinely try to help closeted trans girls realize their internal experiences may be trans, then you cannot do that by saying such obviously inane shit that many closeted trans girls will read and go "well that obviously isn't true? my guy friends aren't like that?" Also, once again the exorsexism of "if you aren't a boy, you MUST be a girl, there is no other option!" because these people would truly rather eat tacks than think about nonbinary people. It's all just gender affirming radical feminism.
[Image ID: Screenshot of Tumblr post with the underwater filter reading: If you feel this like, inviolate respect for women and deep, primal terror that your male sexuality is inherently predatory and invasive and that you should just be as quietly nonthreatening as possible for the continued privilege of being around them instead of having to either be alone or hang out with other boys: you're probably a girl. Like probably in the way that 99.9999~ is "probable".
Cis boys don't feel that way they see girls as fleshlights that signal to other boys they're cool because they managed to get a fleshlight. /End ID]
This post is so funny literally proving OOP’s point. Most of “transfeminist” Tumblr can’t handle how queer people described themselves in the 90’s either. Ntm that at least 50% of these are clearly transfems describing themselves, which it’s pretty fucking transmisogynistic to police the language they’re using. The only possible issue is the use of the h-word if said person wasn’t intersex but it’s the 90’s. All these people sound cool as fuck and would probably call OP a cop
Also this is "My Gender Workbook" by Kate Bornstein a transfem who literally helped to pave way for transfeminism (in fact this book is arguably the first ever transfeminist workbook) and these are the replies that she chose to include in her book about gender diversity.
It's very clear that for many people, the mere act of supporting a transgender man or transmasc person is enough to throw trans women and transfem people under the bus, even including transfem people who have spent decades developing transfeminism and gender activism.
[Image ID: Tumblr post from kiwiNeverDies. Twitter post from the council of evil lesbians (@/ obiWormKenobi) reading: not sure how much of twitter would be able to handle how queer people described themselves in the 90s.
3 screenshots of text reading: 7. always queer, finally dyke, a run-of-the-mill heraphrodite mom.
8. a born again woman.
9. A God+Goddess, part of everything, owned by nothing
10. I think...I am a female fag, who is a drag Queen, who is a mother, who has soon to be transman lover and may very well be a tranny hisself. I hate labels it's all so complicated, but I think it fits the bill today. Change is good right?
25. FTM transgendered bulldagger, gentleman stone butch dyle with fag tendencies. Or as my girlfriend says, a drag queen trapped in a man trapped in a woman's body.
26. I'm a bi-gendered boychick with balls and boobs. Call me Ken, or call me Barbie--same doll, different packaging; some assembly required: sex, clothing and accessories sold separately; available in fine boy-tiques everywhere.
39. I'm the Dyke of Androgyny...i get called sir more than maam, despite the sizable mammary glands protruding from my chest. The hair on my head is the shortest found on my body, a gentle societal mindfuck, if you will.
40. Transsexual dyke, submissive pervert, percussion fetishist, computer geek, and subverise queermonger.
41. Just another brassy womyn who happened to be born with a penis.
42. Two-spirit mixed-blood transgender working-class sober queer boy dyke daddy.
(start tumblr post text) Can we talk about how it's all transmisogyny.
Tagged: op, talking, feminism, queer feminism, transfeminism, lgbtq, lgbt, lgbtqia, queer, pride, stop fucking showing me this shit fucking post. /End ID]
On transmasculinity as pure hypothesis
I know this screenshot is from a post from a couple of months ago but I want to put it in its own post because it’s so demonstrative of the kind of backwards reasoning these people use when it comes to trans issues.
When I say that both transmasculinity itself and transmasculine oppression are epistemologically neutered, this is exactly what I mean. Inequivocable proof of transmascs being unambiguously targeted for their transmasculinity (in this case, trans men of color being essentially tortured in ICE camps) is still inadmissible, because all this news proves is that a transfeminine person would have it worse. There is a rhetorical sleight of hand at play that substitutes the real, named transmascs in the story - specific and individual human people who relayed their own experiences in details firsthand - with entirely hypothetical transfeminine people not in the story at all. The transfem that the tagger imagined in their head for the sole purpose of dismissing anti-transmasculine violence becomes the real person, while the real and named transmascs melt into a mist and become purely hypothetical.
The nature of inhabiting transmasculinity in a world of history-long transmasculine epistemicide is that you are never taken as yourself, in your full living human body, with its discrete characteristics (whatever they may be), its history, its traumas, its unique positionality: you are never read as yourself because your ‘self’ is inherently illegible. Instead you’re like a text in an unknown language that others try to interpret comparing you to know quantities (even aberrant ones) and always finding you lacking in some way - less beautiful, less strong, less virtuous, less meaningful, less interesting, less valuable - because you are being graded on a system that is not just built without you, but rather built around your absence.
To make an example: Often I speak of the ways that growing up as a member of the female social sexgender class has shaped me in the person I am, and specifically the behaviors I have been trained and coerced into in order to escape additional punitive violence (on top of the regular violence being seen as a girl/woman gets you just to keep you subdued into the underclass). I have been taught to walk a certain way, stand and sit a certain way, to make way for people that register as men, to shrink myself around them, to fawn, to smile, to modulate my voice to sound submissive and placating, to defer to them, to apologize for speaking in the first place, to wrap my speech in conditionals and justifications, to make a show of doubting myself even when I’m sure of what I’m saying. This behavior is impossible to completely unlearn while living in a body perceived by others as female, because every step out of line is answered by a retaliation equal in proportion. You people would know about this if any of you listened to cis women. transitioning does not remove this behavior, certainly not instantaneously, and on top of that, having this heavily feminine-coded behavior and speech patterns while appearing even ‘imperfectly’ or ‘somewhat’ male is also grounds for punishment, more or less severe. You would think the people who talk all day of transmisogyny would be able to see this.
Now if I speak of this, I sometimes receive this response: but what about when you pass? When you look and sound and move exactly as a normative cis man does, won’t you have the space and opportunity to unlearn this behavior completely? will you still be claiming that your upbringing has shaped you so, ‘clinging’ to your AGAB? And that certainly sounds like a good argument, if you don’t notice the sleight of hand. If you ignore the fact that it is being told to me, a specific individual trans man with a specific history and body. I am 30 years old. I have been medically transitioning from a while. I do not look like a cis man or a cis woman or a transfeminine person - I look transmasculine. As of now, this much-discussed ‘male passing privilege’ has not reached me even remotely.
Now, because there is no cultural notion of what transmasculinity is or looks like, I am usually read as a medically aberrant and gender non conforming cis woman. At times I’m also read as a gender non conforming, queer, very young cis man, while some other times I’m read as transfeminine. In a few extreme cases where I do my best to ‘girlmode’ out of necessity I can even read as a quasi-normative cis woman, albeit an extremely quirky one. But I am never, ever read as a normative cis man. That has genuinely never happened to me. It is very possible that, due to a mix of my individual medical circumstances, my desires for my own body, and my sexuality and aesthetics, I may never happen. I may never move through the world as a normative (and straight) cis man on a regular basis. I cannot know that for sure because I have a hopefully long life ahead of me, but I certainly wouldn’t discount it as a possibility.
And still, to the person posing the argument of “what about when you pass”, my lived reality for my entire 30 years of life, which will continue to be my lived reality for the short and medium term future, is superseded by the specter of the entirely hypothetical, very possibly forever-inexistent, normative cis-passing straight-passing stealth masculine man they have summoned in their own mind to dismiss the real, present, firsthand testimony of my own lived experience. Their ‘headcanon’ of what I could one day turn into becomes more real than the living, breathing person I am.
If you’re wondering how can we get to the current year knowing so little of transmascs and having so little transmasc presence in history, art and culture, this is how.
I’m glad that this is resonating, I’d like to add two small points.
I was going to link the article with transmascs’ and other masculine AFAB people’s experiences in ICE camps, but I somehow forgot before hitting post. This post is lacking without that context, and the reader’s ability to go and read the experiences of the transmasculine people I refer to in it. This post has excerpts for accessibility and a link to the full article itself.
I am glad that people are adding their own experiences with their relationship to passing and what I in the post call ‘readability’. Adding more transmasculine voices to the pool of available knowledge always helps to fill out the void a little. I will not censor let alone criticize people who use this post to do so. However, I would like to clarify that this post is about the ontological and epistemological situation of transmasculinity itself, specifically how transmasculinity has always been so consistently and reliably erased from the human record because it has the particular quality of not being considered admissible as its own evidence. When I talk about some of the effects of quote-unquote ‘female socialization’ on my psyche and behavior, and the way my reporting this experience is automatically and as a matter of course dismissed by bringing up how my eventual potential ‘passing’ may negate these effects, I am doing so to provide an example about a larger phenomenon. The phenomenon, and not the example, is what’s important. For instance, someone in the notes (correctly) points out that even for trans men who perfectly pass, passing doesn’t negate their need for specific healthcare that cis men don’t need. That is unquestionably true. But the textbook response to this, according to the phenomenon I observe, would be to say: “well what about trans men who get phalloplasties and hysterectomies? Aren’t they trans men too? That means that you can’t claim that ‘needing access to gynecology/abortion/etc’ is a transmasculine experience!” Or if you say that transmasculine people experience medical misogyny as a result of needing gynecological care, they will respond: “what about cis women who are infertile? Or who are born without uteri? You can’t claim that needing gynecological care or abortions or experiencing periods means that transmascs will be treated misogynistically based on some functions of their bodies, because there’s even cis women who don’t experience that!” And so on forever. The point is that anything transmasculine people report about our own experiences can be dismissed by bringing up a hypothetical other person (a different transmasc, a cis woman, a trans woman, a NB person who isn’t transmasculine, the transmasc in the conversation’s hypothetical future self, his hypothetical cis woman version, his hypothetical cis man version, etc. etc. etc.) because our real material existence is seen as a hypothesis that is never fulfilled in reality, so flimsy and removed from the material texture of the world that the mere concept of any other person feels more solid than our living bodies.
I’d appreciate if everyone reblogged this version.
[Image ID: Text reading: Trans people can't be affirmed in our genders even when we're being advocated for. (start highlight) I pale to think how bad trans women are being treated by ICE if this is how trans men are treated. /End ID]
genuinely i need someone to explain to me how girldick or boypussy is different than chained up uterus tattoo in terms of "identifying with a ""symbol of your CAGAB."" its all just different stops on the same transmedicalist anti-transmasc train of thought.
[Image ID: Tumblr reply from blocked out username reading: I can't believe I'm in the same community with people who think that putting giant symbol of your CAGAB on your back is a good idea and actually very pro-transgender. Let's all kill ourselves
Reply from gkamain reading: I guess ever referring to or joking about or celebrating girlDick and boyPussy is transphobic too. wouldn't want to ever associate with anything that could be connected to one's assigned sex right!
Reply from blocked out username reading: @/ gkamain You've very dumb. And that's okay. /End ID]
i don't actually care about the argument being had in the post this is from, but i just find this interesting:
the "just" is doing a lot of work here. there's an implicit belief that feelings are immaterial, subjective and therefore less real and less meaningful (hyperobjectivity), and meant to be overpowered by the rational objective will. and therefore, if gender is "just" a feeling, then it shouldn't have such a strong impact on one's life that one is not able to simply repress out of existence. which means that because one CANNOT do that, gender must be objectively real and not emotionally or socially based.
if you do not start from this hyperobjective perspective, this line of logic starts to fall apart. feelings are not "just," and they can have a profound impact on someone's life while nonetheless being subjective. the same goes for social constructs and the influence of culture over our feelings and ways of making sense of our experiences; none of this is "just" anything, and there should be no expectation that one can simply (or should simply!) make experiences born out of feelings or society "go away." but hyperobjectivity is deeply ingrained in our culture, and if you do not have the skills or foundation to make meaning differently, you won't.
i don't doubt this person feels genuinely supported and seen by 4tran. but i also think a lot of that has more to do with their broader worldview and meaningmaking practices & not finding other trans perspectives as credally accessible from where they are right now.
[Image ID: Text reading: also, for the record, i don't know exactly how toxic you think 4tran is, but in my time engaging with that community, i've felt more comfort than ever before. /tttt/ helped me learn that the world isn't always against me and that there are people out there who agree with a lot of my stances. if you think i should go back to "gender's just a feeling, so why can't i make it go away" then i think you should fuck off and eat rocks. /End ID]
we've fully reached "misgendering isn't real" btw. insane take
Right that's why "You will never be a woman/man" is such a common phrase. Because transphobes don't see trans women as women and trans men as men.
And that's why they let trans women into women's sports and "women only" spaces while forcing trans men into women's spaces. Because they see trans men as men, right?
"transphobes do see you as the gender you are" This is not only incorrect, but also exorsexist
Transphobes can't even conceive of my gender identity, let alone know intrinsically what I am on sight. Get real.
and if i said you can draw a direct line from this shit to people rejecting queer theory and the work of nonbinary transfeminists......
also relevant cause i just reblogged that quote from Emi Koyama from the Transfeminist Manifesto, on male privilege. from what i've seen the above attitude stems in a lot of ways from trying to challenge cis feminist's claims of "trans women have / grew up with male privilege and were socialized as male!" by pointing to experiences many trans women have had throughout their lives before transitioning of being targeted for their gender and socially feminized in various ways.
& those are real and important critiques! but when you combine that with what Koyama termed "reverse essentialism" (the idea that gender is not a construct but an immutable trait but done in a gender-affirming way, such as "trans people have the opposite brain sex") which is itself fundamentally exorsexist and tied to patriarchy, you take it from "trans women's experience of social gendering throughout their life is very often not the same as a cis man's and trans women can experience misogyny from a young age" to "the patriarchy can See your True Soul Gender and no matter what is always treating you as your True Soul Gender" and what's really fucking insane is that people then treat this as a materialist take. yeah sure its materialist, if you only consider the material reality of a select group of trans people. which btw is exactly the same mistake transphobic "materialist" cisfeminists make by saying that trans women universally grew up with male privilege and don't have materially "female" experiences.
anyways, as far as i know, that is why people are so insistent that the patriarchy sees trans people as our "real" genders and misgendering is just a mind game. and look, i'm all for "the patriarchy as a system is deceptive about its own beliefs" and i do think how trans people are socialized and socially gendered is more complex than people tend to act like it is. but this comes from basically the same impulse as "i'm trans because my brain is the opposite sex!" it's trying to both appeal to exorsexist, gender-essentialist society while also affirming one's one gender by the rules of that society, even when its done in a supposedly anti-patriarchal manner. and hence why nonbinary people always get shafted, because we are fundamentally A Problem for trans people who see themselves as temporarily embarrassed cis people.
also, Emi was not nonbinary or genderqueer as a personal identity, but she also stated that she "does not identify with any particular gender, but she does not so strongly identify with the state of having no gender to claim that as an identity either. Honestly, she thinks that having an identity--especially gender identity--is kind of weird: how she views herself depends on the human relationships and interactions that surround her, rather than arising from some intrinsic core sense of self" and attributed this to her Japanese background, which i think is important to mention given my above comment. gosh its almost like the Real Transfeminist Theory people online love so much is very specifically white binary western transfeminist theory and people consistently shit on or erase the vital contributions of transfeminists who question their beloved reverse essentialism & exorsexism. hmmmmm
[Image ID: Screenshot with the underwater filter of Tumblr reply from b0ttl3gr33n reading: @/ enderCatVwoops bc society does see you as a man. transphobes do see trans people as the gender they are, just the trans version, and we get everything that comes with that. they are treating you not like a cis man, not like a cis woman, but a trans man. and trans men dont get treat as horrifically as trans women, thats where the privilege is. /End ID]
I hate posts like these that attempt to split hairs over individual oppression points to argue that one group of trans people has privilege over another (especially since, if we must, trans men notably have higher rates of sexual assault and less representation in government than trans women, facts that get conveniently ignored or even actively erased in these convos) because well. It’s unproductive, but even moreso it becomes a breeding ground for rank TERFish transphobic bile to be spread around uncritically:
This is what TERFs believe, wholesale, and is just transphobia, nothing more. If you genuinely think it’s okay to say that trans men “transitioned to manhood to benefit from the patriarchy” you aren’t safe for trans people to be around, yes even if you’re trans yourself. The idea that this is somehow “queer solidarity” would be laughable if it weren’t so depressing.
I am once again mentioning that this "study" had 700 LGBT respondents. For the entire thing. This is compared to the 2015 USTS (link) which has 27k responses from JUST trans people. It shows that trans men, and nonbinary individuals who were AFAB, have a lower income on average than trans women and nonbinary individuals who were AMAB. In fact, in 2015, trans women in the US have the HIGHEST yearly income compared to any other subcategory of the trans community
Someone in the replies mentioned the number was 7000 not 700, which while still small, is an important note. I must also note about the 2015 study shared by intersexcat-tboy, that trans women and nonbinary/genderqueer folks who were AMAB in the study are on average more likely to be white than trans men and nonbinary/genderqueer folks who were AFAB, and the former group was on average older than the latter- both variables which affect income statistics, with race playing a heavy role.
The fact is that the true trans pay gap isn't between trans men and trans women, it's between white trans people and racialized trans people. This whole thing where we're bickering about which trans gender is doing better is fucking ridiculous when racialized trans people are on average, experiencing worse outcomes than white trans people on every metric.
Do trans men have systemic power over trans women? There really isn't a good evidence to back that up, nor is there any reason to believe the reverse. There is no steady metric for measuring the systemic power of one portion of a tiny minority against another, and it's stupid to bicker about it when we already know that different groups of trans people need support with different issues. Non-exhaustively, trans women tend to need support against stranger violence, and exclusion from education, and trans men tend to struggle with domestic violence, and discrimination in hospitals- and all trans people have higher rates of discrimination in all these fields than cis people. Most the issues trans people face are intimately connected to exploitation and violence at the hands of cis people- I mean not least because they are 98-99.6% of the population
But do white trans people have power over racialized trans people? Abso-fucking-lutely. White trans people are white before we are trans, point blank period.
Also there is no one single statistic than can objectively prove xyz is more privileged than zxy.
The U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics found that in the first half of 2026, Black women's weekly median earnings were $956, or 85% of white women's, while Hispanic women earned $901 (80% of white women's).
Does this mean that Hispanic women are more racially oppressed than Black women, because they earned 5% less than Black women, who earn 25% less than white women, who earn 30% less than white men? Does the fact that Asian men and women earn more than their white counterparts mean that Asian people are the least affected by racism, and that Asian women maybe even have privilege over white women?
No. That would be piss poor social analysis, and the kind of analysis that is more concerned with fighting over whose got it The Worst instead of developing a sociopolitical consciousness that facilitates liberation. This one statistic can tell us some things about gender and racial oppression, but shit is always More Complicated Than That, and oppression is always far too complex and holistic to ever be reduced down to any one statistic.
It is bad that trans women are so economically fucked over. It puts them in danger in multiple ways and should be discussed. That people act like this discussion needs to happen in a hierarchical way is not a neutral thing. Especially when different studies find different trans groups are more/less affected by an issue, but pretty much universally find trans people are more affected than cis people.
Also, since it wasn't mentioned above: the HRC could only look at "full-time (35 or more hours/week), non-farm worker employees employed in the public or private sector" in this study. They themselves pointed out that "were we to include the wages of part-time/temporary workers, as well as non-wage earners, it is likely the gaps between LGBTQ+ and non-LGBTQ+ adults would widen beyond what is reported here" so this study also does not represent the full extent of trans labor.
Finally I think everyone should read this study, because it presents a much more detailed and nuanced approach to this topic than just looking at things based on gender identity alone:
When estimating outcomes gaps across the two transgender groups by assigned birth-sex, AMAB GQNBs and AFAB GQNBs have significantly lower incomes and are more likely to be in part-time employment when compared with their MTF and FTM counterparts, respectively. However, when estimating outcome gaps within the ‘Trans’ group, FTMs have significantly lower incomes, are more likely to be in part-time work, but are less likely to be unemployed compared with MTFs. Within the ‘GQNB’ group, AFAB GQNBs have significantly lower incomes and are more likely to be in part-time employment, compared with their AMAB GQNB counterparts. [...] The degree to which respondents have legally, socially, medically and/or surgically transitioned varies substantially within each transgender group. To test the sensitivity of my results to this variation, I compare the incomes of MTFs and FTMs who began living full-time as their gender identity earlier in life, to those who waited until later. I find that the significantly lower incomes associated with FTMs compared with MTFs disappears when restricting the sample to those who began living full-time at a younger age. The incomes of MTFs who begin living full-time as female at a younger age are lower than those who wait, while the incomes of FTMs who begin living full-time as male at a younger age are higher.
Once again: shit is More Complicated Than That. In the future I'd like if we could use statistics to think about who may need more support where, without a scarcity mindset of "only ONE group can be affected by any given issue the most and we can ONLY talk about and support that ONE group" because it really is giving psyop at a certain point.
[Image IDs: Image #1: Tumblr post from da-mouse reading: "we're all faggots in the eyes of the state!" "we all have it just as bad!"
ok. wage gap
Picture of text reading: 70 cents; trans men; earn for every dollar the typical worker earns.
60 cents; trans women; earn for every dollar the typical worker earns.
Image #2: Continuation of Tumblr post: like. come on now
trans mennnnn pspspsps understand your relative privilege over your transfem sisters and use it to support and uplift us instead of pretending not to have the structural leverage necessary to harm us. ooooo you know you want to build queer solidarity #transfeminism
Image #3: Tumblr reply from playdough-cookie reading: they transitioned to manhood so they could take advantage of the patriarchy. nothing more.
Reply from maja-paja reading: being misogynistic is gender affirming for them ..
Reply from playdough-cookie reading: @/ maja-paja no because i wouldn't even be so cruel about trans guys if they weren't so fucking misogynistic so frequently. /End IDs]
Satirical guide for cis allies from the March 1997 FTM newsletter, which you can read in full here.
[Image ID: Text reading: Jules asks:
Why is it the only time FTMs break into the news it's for 'deceiving' geneto-women into thinking they're geneto-guy? Maybe somebody needs to publish a top ten list of ways you know your husband wasn't born a guy. Such as...
10. You never see his dick; or
9. His dick grows 7 inches overnight, and you find a box in the trash labeled "Jeff Stryker's Realistic Dildo"
8. He buys lots of hair gel, but never puts any on his hair.
7. His mother calls him "Rosemary," not "Roger"; he claims she has Alzheier's disease, but she seems pretty sharp to you.
6. You catch him giving himself a shot in the butt, and he claims he's suddenly become a diabetic; or
5. You find these round little patches all over the house and he claims they're some new kind of deodorant patch he's beta-testing for a pharmaceutical lab.
4. He never takes off his jog bra, and never jobs.
3. When you find his old high school ring and notice it's from a Catholic girls' high school, he mumbles about an experiment in coeducation.
2. You get a call from his doctor's office about an overdue bill, and realize the doctor's a gynecologist and
1. He has no pictures of himself prior to the age of 37 and claims it's because his family was Amish and didn't believe in cameras. /End ID]
I see a lot of Tumblr users who don't know their feminist history attributing the fact that women* are "allowed" to be masculine under the patriarchy as some sort of facet of the patriarchy universally accepting masculinity over femininity and that shit pisses me off so bad.
The reason why women* are "allowed" to be masculine when men* "aren't" allowed to be feminine under patriarchy is because DYKES and BUTCHES and other masculine women* SPENT DECADES FIGHTING FOR THEIR RIGHTS TO EXIST PUBLICLY.
The fact that women* can wear pants and suits etc. and are not constantly forced to be hyper feminine/in adherence with strict gendered dress codes without punishment (AND ONLY IN SOME COUNTRIES!) is a win on behalf of feminist political action NOT because of some baseline acceptance of masculinity in everybody by the patriarchy.
(*and people forcibly socially classed as women and men)
Like oh my lord some of you need to shut the fuck up and learn what it was like to be socially classed as a woman before the sexual revolution and what it continues to be like outside of the imperial core.
You are reaping the benefits of the activists who have come before you but because you do not know your history you are treating it like the boons of the oppressor classes and you are blind for it.
this implies drag queens and male transvestites never fought for their corresponding rights. if that's not the argument you want to make, then maybe we can put some thought into why one direction might have been more successful than the other? 🤔
no one is denying the existence of oppositional sexism, but your analysis seems to suggest that only one form of oppression can ever apply to any given issue at a time.
that's a whole brand new bad faith sentence that you made up in your head
look, maybe you didn't mean it this way, but i've been seeing a lot of very similar arguments being made lately in order to deny the applicability of certain intersectional forms of analysis to certain demographics.
again, maybe you weren't thinking about those arguments when you wrote this and were simply intending to give a round of applause to the feminist movements of the 20th century for an oft overlooked or downplayed win, and if that is the case, then agreed. it was a very important accomplishment.
however, at the present time, we've got some very charged and harmful rhetoric going around that use pretty much the exact same framing you used here with the exact same blindspots, and so i figured i'd do you and your audience the kindness of making sure the implications of your omissions didn't go unnoticed.
sometimes a whole brand new sentence needs to be said when you leave out part of the story.
I was literally doing none of those things actually, and you made a bad faith assumption about what I meant.
I made this post because I have seen the, frankly, anti-feminist anti-butch argument that "masculinity is inherently accepted by the Patriarchy, even in women and people assigned female, whereas femininity is always inherently punished by the patriarchy in everyone of every gender identity" go around this website for awhile now. The argument that regularly gets brought up in favor of that misconception is the fact that women* (and people classed as women) are allowed to dress "masculine" whereas men* (and people classed as men) are always punished for dressing "feminine" — and this is simply false in both cases.
This post has nothing to do with drag queens and male transvestites fighting for their own rights to exist as gnc people, and everything to do with the fact that one very specific feminist success and the lack of education around it has led a lot of under-educated people to believe that one form of gender non-conformity is accepted by the Patriarchy when another isn't - when that's literally just lie actually.
This is a post about the history of masc activism being erased and ahistorically treated like a facet of the Patriarchy.
Your "kindness" is rooted in a lot of bad faith assumptions and is not appreciated.
huh. maybe you didn't see that "scone butch" is my blog title. fun fact, it was butches who first welcomed me into the queer community. they were my introductory education into queer theory and queer history. i am, myself, an butch.
so, i've looked through your blog some now, and it seems that when taking this post in the context of many of your other posts, it seems my suspicions were, in fact, right on the money about the dogwhistles i was hearing. anyway.
is my masculinity always an asset? fuck no. a central tenant to intersectionality is pointing out how conditional pretty much every privilege and oppression can be, but it acknowledges this complexity in order to build a more robust way to talk about patriarchy and other systems of oppression.
and at the end of the day, if i know nothing else about the place i'm going and want to ensure my smoothest interactions with people there? i'm going with the vest and Oxford shirt or the tank top and jacket rather than the flowery blouse.
and while yes, it took a lot of fighting to get even here, you can't tell this story without also asking why men in dresses are still largely met with ridicule by most of society. was it because the equivalent fight wasn't fought? or was it because patriarchy is more amenable to people seeking or emulating masculinity than people rejecting it?
are there situations where masculinity is punished or at least not rewarded? absolutely. as a butch, i know how slim the dating market is for us, doubly so being butch4butch. but does that mean that i can't also acknowledge that, on average, i actually have an easier time with it than most gay men who'd like to wear dresses as often as i wear vests? of course not.
"Or was it because patriarchy is more amenable to people seeking or emulating masculinity rather than people rejecting it?"
NO IT ISN'T. IT LITERALLY ISN'T.
And that's a fucked up thing to try to imply to someone who was correctively assaulted for just verbally expressing the desire to present more masculine.
You are actively denying the lived realities of people just because you haven't personally experienced it and that's a terrible thing to do to other trans people.
"The dating market as a butch" — people are still harassed and assaulted and murdered for being gnc masc people globally, like be so fucking fr right now.
Apparently it's oppositional sexism when people classed as women and girls (which inherently includes trans women because I get accused of saying shit I'm not) are violently corrected for expressing masculinity. And not just like. sexist Patriarchal coercion.
This bullshit is exactly why I made the original post in the first place. This is what happens when someone's only exposure to intersectional analysis is a game of telephone on Tumblr about misconceptions of some bullshit Julia Serano wrote 20 years ago.
do i have to pull this shit out again
While gender expression is thus less explicitly criminalized than sexual orientation—the same project reports 66 countries that criminalize same-sex relations between consenting adults—LBQ+ people interviewed for this report repeatedly named gendered discrimination against masculine gender expressions in particular as the catalyst for a lifetime of economic marginalization, discrimination and harassment at work, psychological abuse, and physical and sexual violence. [...]
Nadia, an LBQ+ activist in Lebanon recounted how, in 2019, a man in Beirut threatened to shoot her after she defended a female friend he was sexually harassing: "If you are butch-presenting, there’s an attitude from men of “you think you’re a man, we’re going to treat you like one, but we know you can’t handle it.” If your girlfriend is being harassed in a bar and you try to protect her; if you’re femme, you’ll be sexually harassed along with her. But butches get punched. The violence is immediate. This is why we don’t go out much. I had a gun pulled on me once because I stood up to a guy aggressively hitting on a friend of mine. He threatened to use it and said multiple times: “I’ll show you” and “you’re trying to become a man.” It’s not just about inflicting violence on your body; it’s about proving you’re not as strong as you’re pretending your body is. This stuff is way more nuanced than men trying to “show you what you’re missing” by raping you. It’s not just about “here is the dick you need sexually because you’re a lesbian.” It’s about “here is the dick you aspire to physically have; I’m going to show you that you cannot have it.” It’s about putting queer women in their place. A stark reminder about violence against those who struggle to take up space. [...]
LBQ+ advocates in Argentina, El Salvador, Indonesia, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Malawi, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, and the US reported that from a young age, styles of dress read as masculine, gender-nonconforming, or androgynous resulted in threats from parents to remove girls from school, compounding the already precarious access to education that girls face globally. A 2017 Human Rights Watch report examining discrimination against LGBT students in the Philippines found that “teachers scrutinized girls they considered ‘butch’ or masculine, and took steps to separate them from other girls to prevent them from becoming close.” One 22-year-old bisexual woman who had attended high school in Manila told Human Rights Watch that more masculine-presenting girls were “especially targeted.” [...] As a UNESCO report on discrimination and bullying in school noted, “[e]xclusion and stigma in education can also have life-long impacts on employment options, economic earning potential, and access to benefits and social protection.” According to interviews, if women continued to wear these same styles of masculine-coded dress later in life, they experienced employment discrimination. This included rejection from jobs in indoor employment otherwise available to lower- and middle-class women in many countries, such as in hotels, restaurants, catering, cleaning, administration, and secretarial work. [...]
LBQ+ activists in Argentina, El Salvador, and Kyrgyzstan told Human Rights Watch similar stories about masculine-presenting LBQ+ people in their communities being routinely pushed into precarious jobs with poor labor rights practices (farm work, sex work, and auto shops, respectively) or primarily male-dominated fields where they face further forms of abuse. Rosa, an LBQ+ activist in El Salvador, reported that several butch lesbians in her community were compelled to work as sex workers after being repeatedly rejected from work they were otherwise qualified for, such as jobs in restaurants, food trucks, and hotels due to wearing pants, collared shirts, and their hair short. As sex workers, they were exposed to a wide range of human rights violations and dangers. [...] "Whenever a lesbian sex worker is detained, they say we are insane, that we are lesbians because we haven’t had a good fuck. Before they take you to jail, you get raped. Then they bring you and charge you. You are targeted as a sex worker, hunted down on the street the way we all are, and then you are punished like a lesbian. When police raid brothels and homes, the masculine lesbians get treated “like men.” This means more forceful handcuffing, kneeling, and stripping their shirts off." According to Rosa, police are “far more brutal” to masculine-presenting queer women, which is particularly dangerous given that their masculine-presentation is a large part of what originally forced many LBQ+ people into sex work. Thus, masculine-presenting queer women’s discrimination in employment may lead to police violence after being pushed into sex work.
also notice how this report covers areas that aren't the US or Canada or the UK or Australia. hence why ftmtftm said ONLY IN SOME COUNTRIES is people seen as women wearing pants (not men's pants, women's pants) socially acceptable.
tbh i think at a certain point, trying to distinguish between oppositional & traditional sexism fails because they necessarily function as one. anti-queerness is fundamental to patriarchy, as fundamental as misogyny is, and misogyny is inherently anti-queer as is misandry, and anti-queerness is inherently misogynistic and misandristic.
nothing in the og post was a dogwhistle. you just spend so much time around people throwing out anti-transmasc dogwhistles you've developed fucking tinnitus.
[Image ID: Screenshot of text with the underwater filter reading: yeah, same. again, oppositional sexism is absolutely a thing and definitely applies to all of us. but you can't use commonalities to then ignore differences. and i'll even grant that might race and nationality insulate me from how bad it is for other people who don't have those privileges but otherwise share my gender and/or presentation.
but again: intersectional analysis shows how all that works. /End ID]
So they officially renamed vaginal atrophy to genitourinary symptoms of menopause (GSM), even though menopause is not the only cause of vaginal atrophy; see possible symptoms of testosterone HRT. Trans exclusive language fucking everywhere. Thanks, medical sexism.
ty to @crystaluranium for adding this! later clarified that this is not exactly a movement but this paper goes over the name change & gives a proposals for alternative name/s
The term “Genitourinary Syndrome of Menopause” (GSM) was introduced to replace “vulvovaginal atrophy,” a term previously used only for postmenopausal women. However, GSM remains limited by its exclusive association with menopause, even though many individuals experience genitourinary symptoms due to a wide range of medical, hormonal, and physiological factors. This restrictive terminology excludes other affected groups and may lead to misdiagnosis or insufficient care. A broader, more inclusive term that accounts for the diverse causes and populations experiencing these symptoms, will enhance diagnostic accuracy and empower both healthcare providers and patients.
i find it interesting that this says "vulvovaginal atrophy" was only used for postmenopausal women. maybe for medical professionals? but i think this name change is a surprise for most people even if its not actually recent because. most people still call it vaginal atrophy & i've learned about it primarily in a trans context. idk who this name change was for but it doesn't seem like it was for the general population? but maybe that's just selection bias on tumblr's part idk!
The term “Genitourinary Syndrome of Menopause” is too restrictive and fails to encompass the diverse populations affected by genitourinary symptoms. A broader and more inclusive term, such as Genitourinary Syndrome (GS), with subcategories to capture specific conditions, is proposed to improve diagnosis, treatment, and patient care. These subcategories would include: ● GS of Perimenopause/Menopause ● GS of Postpartum & Lactation ● GS of Hormonal Contraceptives ● GS of Gender-Affirming Hormone Therapy ● GS of Cancer Treatment & Prevention ● GS of Endocrine Disorders (e.g., Endometriosis, PCOS, POI, anovulation, other Hypothalamic–pituitary-ovarian axis disorders, other) ● GS of Medications (e.g., Isotretinoin, Spironolactone and other acne medications, Antidepressants/SSRI’s, Anticholinergics, Chemotherapeutics, Antihypertensives, other) ● GS of Other Causes (e.g., genetic disorders, chromosomal syndromes, stress, eating disorders, sport training, other) Adopting this inclusive terminology will reduce stigma, promote equitable healthcare, and ensure timely diagnosis and appropriate treatment for all affected individuals, regardless of age, hormonal status, or gender identity.
this proposal explicitly mentions trans people which is nice. i do feel (in my unprofessional opinion) that genitourinary syndrome feels. a little vague, and having one overall term that's a little more specific would be better. but its good to have more context!
it seems like there have been a few articles in the last two years talking about the name change. if you wanna get really annoyed you can read this one by Harvard Medical School. its just really fucking annoying seeing people use this demeanor of "we're Raising Awareness and Making This Term More Accurate!" while championing the change of a term that was widely used by trans and intersex people because it was already gender neutral to a term that is less accurate about who is affected and the article uses cisperisexist language throughout.
like, i do think its good to discuss the wider impacts of hypoestrogenism on the genitourinary system. i think honestly hypoestrogenic genitourinary syndrome is a much better term to change it to. but its hard not to be upset about this name change from a trans & intersex perspective because vaginal atrophy was a rare example of a term that wasn't already gendered (it wasn't "female genital atrophy" or some bullshit like that) and it was extremely easy to talk about in different contexts. that's why it's so weird seeing that paper be like "it was only associated with menopause" maybe for your cisgender ass!!! & i've seen a lot of people in these spaces care a LOT about raising awareness about vaginal atrophy, by that name, amongst trans and intersex people who are frequently affected by both atrophy and the erasure and stigma around it that prevents people from knowing it exists.
so for them to be like Don't Worry Everyone!! We've Improved The Name :) to something that actively makes it less inclusive for trans & intersex people, whose lower levels of estrogen are not often associated with menopause even if technically one could call it menopause. because menopause is associated with older (cis peri) women and even that Harvard article doesn't talk about intersex with premature menopause, just older women. and it is less accurate about what is causing this. also
like literally "hypoestrogenism" is right there.
[Image IDs: Image #1: Tumblr reply from crystalUranium reading: So this change was initially made in 2014, and seen as a good thing because it was focused on more comprehensively the entire vulva as well as the urinary system. However, of course it's not good to have it only associated with menopause. I went into a deep dive and currently there's actually a movement to rename it yet again and this time to Hypoestrogenic Genitourinary Syndrome (HGUS) which actually is a much better and more accurate term it's just that insurance companies and geriatrics are fucking stubborn and misogynistic and transphobic/intersexist/exosexist
To my surprise this current term also harms even cis men because cis men can experience urological issues that are basically the exact same cause by the exact same low estrogen levels, but it often goes undiagnosed due to the gendered and agist interpretation of this sort of stuff only being the result of menopause - so theoretically this new label could even be used to encompass all people regardless of genital anatomy
Image #2: Tumblr reply from cystralUranium reading: @/ genderKoolaid Additionally, due to how medical insurance is structured, the exact same syndrome in menopausal people is covered under a single code, but for non menopausal people, even if it's the exact same syndrome of low estrogen, the provider either has to list them as menopausal or ahs to list ever symptom as different codes that aren't related to eachOther, and are less likely to be covered by insurance /End ID]
its crazy that megan thee stallion is not considered a queer artist by some people. the woman is not shy about the fact that she finds women attractive and likes having sex with them. she references it pretty frequently in her music, she made a whole song about enjoying having threesomes with a woman and a man, she made a Jennifer's Body-themed music video, she had Victoria Monét full riding her thigh on stage at a coachella, and there's literally a video of a lesbian interviewing glorilla at a party & asking who she would date if she was queer and her immediate response is "megan. megan like girls!" and then megan turns around and immediately starts flirting with the interviewer. i don't know what more you want. that woman is Bi Sexual and we should all be thankful every day for that. bi women are still bi when they wanna fuck men too you know. the fucking of men is also done bisexually.
someone PLEASE call the gay people police !!!!!!! a queer woman of color is talking about being horny for women guys please we NEED to stop this quick!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
does a bi woman sexualizing women in her music & wanting an FMF threesome make her a gay icon
yes
veritably
indubitably
its a requirement actually
really good tags so far. also. just have to make this point:
meg's music in general is frequently very horny. when she includes her attraction to women in her music its sexual because when she includes her attraction to men in her music its sexual. she's a sexually explicit artist. you know. "your honor i'm a freak bitch handcuffs leashes" "hoes tryna get picked, i'm just tryna get dick" "mandatory that i get the head but no guarantees on the penetration" literally references pimping out men in her music all the time 1/2 of Wet Ass Pussy herself.
she very much depicts herself as a sexual subject and sexual actor in her music, someone who desires and chooses to act upon those desires with confidence and skill. and given how much intense misogynoiristic hate she gets from cishet men i think it should be very very obvious she's not faking being into women to get cis male approval!
so to assume that her talking about being sexually attracted to women and faking wanting a threesome with a man and a woman and faking having had and planning to continue having sex with women is her performing fake bisexuality to pander to straight men is laughable. and also disgustingly biphobic and racist. as with the original post, its very much an intersection of biphobia and anti-Blackness; there is no way for her to be a "good queer icon" to such people as shown above. this whole post could apply to Cardi B or any number of Black mspec artists, or just queer Black artists in general.
[Image IDs: Image #1: Tumblr reply from yeagerloop reading: is this post a parody trying to hit every negative stereotype of bi women?? (face tears of joy emoji) lmfao. it kind of reminds me of when that post called the weeknd an lgbt icon & not possibly homophobic bc he raps about threesome with two women
Reply from genderKoolaid (Original Poster) reading: a real life queer woman is not a stereotype but thanks for playing
Reply from yeagerloop reading: @/ genderKoolaid all of your examples of why she is such a "queer icon" are though (face with tears of joy emoji) i missed the memo where a bi woman sexualizing women in her music & wanting a FMF threesome makes her an icon for gay people lmfao. jesus christ
Image #2: Tumblr tags from irrigone reading: of course megan thee stallion is my bicon, she's so gorgeous and talented, racism and biphobia are a hell of a drug, what do you people want? some kind of pop pete buttigieg?
Image #3: Tumblr tags from gender-euphowrya reading: would love to hear what this person thinks megan should do to be a queer icon instead, since apparently expressing attraction to women and singing about fucking them isn't good enough, meg shoudl sing about finding her neighbor's lost cat in the alps
Image #4: Tumblr tags from crawthronsharkinson reading: God forbid a woman has hobbies, or enjoys sex and revels in her joy of her sexuality, some of you people would be Queuing up to get on the fucking mayflower, oh youre mad that the black woman finds joy in her sexuality? should we sit together in silence? should we call oliver Cromwell? /End IDs]
from "Promoting and Protecting Human Rights in relation to Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity and Sex Characteristics" by the Asia Pacific Forum of National Human Rights Institutions
For those who haven't heard of Shivy Bhat: he was 19 years old and already being abused by his family while living in California, when after asking his mother if he could cut his hair, she demanded he give her access to his phone and was outdated as trans. Under the pretense that they were taking a trip back to India to see his grandmother, Shivy's family kidnapped him, planning on forcing him to live in India in order to "fix" him by teaching him to be a "cultured Indian girl," and planning on forcing him into an arranged marriage. They had taken away all his identifying documents and his phone. He managed to escape with the help of a local queer feminist group, which then resulted in a legal battle as Shivy's family tried to accuse the group of kidnapping and sex trafficking to get access to him again.
This is not the first case of a trans man in Uttar Pradesh experiencing his family use the legal system to kidnap him after he escapes to a trans shelter. A trans man, 'Aditya', came to a shelter "starved and scared," telling shelter staff his family had confined him for days and he feared for his life. Three days later, in the middle of the night, police forcibly took Aditya from the shelter, without a warrant and without following the procedure of the shelter. In a different incident, a trans man, 'Deep', fled to the Asra shelter because his father, a police officer, was violently abusive, writing in a letter that "I know if I go [back home], I will not be able to come back. They will either kill me or marry me off" and that "I believe [my family] will lock me in the house and there is a threat to my life." Five policemen came to Asra and physically attacked shelter workers, arresting two trans men who worked there and taking them to the police station where they were assaulted further. Similarly, in this article trans man named Vivek Azad talks about his family beating him, having men sent to rape him, not allowing him to cut his hair, and having all his school certificates burned by his brother which prevents him from getting employed. A 17-year-old trans man named Manoj was beaten, tied by his hands and feet, and locked in a room in his family's house after coming out, and forcibly married to a man twice his age, although he was eventually able to escape with his girlfriend and get a divorce from the man he was forced to marry.
#these are heartbreaking#but also tie precisely back into what i keep saying about how violence against those reared into expected girl/womanhood is invisibilized#ie less political legislation is made specifically targeting these groups not because they are let off scot free#but because the unwritten social contract of a high-control patriarchical society says from the outset 'these are the people you are#EXPECTED to rein in. EXPECTED to discipline. shame upon the patriarch of the house if he cannot 'correct' a deviant member of the lesser#gender class.' and so because it is such a social shame this violence is carried out in the home and not publicly.#obviously this is not to say these groups don't also face public violence but that saying these groups aren't publically/legislatively#targeted is a) untrue b) conveniently obfuscates societally-sanctioned private violence as just a fact of this side of gendered rearing#the statistics on IPV alone corroborate this but are somehow dismissed as 'lesser violence'. default violence.#i keep meaning to write up a post about honor killings as gendered control mechanisms but i am so tired of this blog at this point#on a lighter note im mallu (not tamil but a closely related language) and learning the tamil word thirunambi from reading this did make me#go :) for a moment. yay queer terminology in L1s#anyway it is not an exaggeration to say in some cultures and parts of the world one is born into the property class of the familial unit.#and not even wanted property at that; the perceived girl child is a money pit and a burden to be foisted off on a man as soon as possible.
[Image IDs: Image #1: Text reading: There is (start highlight) much less regional information available (end highlight) about the experiences of specific groups among the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex populations, especially:
(start highlight) people assigned a female sex at birth who do not have a female gender identity; (end highlight) for example, transgender men
women who are solely or sometimes attracted to women; for example, lesbians and bisexual women
(start highlight) women who have a masculine gender expression; (end highlight) for example, 'butch' women, who may or may not be lesbian
intersex people.
Unlike the abundance of gender identity terms for transgender women, (start highlight) traditional local terms that refer to transgender men are unusual. (end highlight) Those that do exist are more likely to be of recent origin, though they may attempt to frame transgender men's identities within an historical or cultural context. Examples include thirunabmi in Malaysia and Inida, kua xing nan in Malaysia, laki-laki in Indonesia, transpinoy in the Philippines, bandhu in Bangladesh, Brotherboy in Australia and tangata ira tane in New Zealand. (start highlight) Even where these terms exist, transgender men may find it difficult to be acknowledged as male, (end highlight) as frequently others refer to them using more common terms that describe butch lesbians.
Image #2: Text reading: (start highlight) Emerging research in this region and internationally suggests that people who are born female and grow up to identify as gender non-confirming or trans masculine face high levels of violence and abuse within the family. This abuse is directed at both masculine lesbians and and transgender boys and young men and includes corrective rape and forced marriage. ^163 (end highlight) It remains invisible and unreported when States do not legislate against family and domestic violence and leave families to enforce social norms, standards of respectibility and morality.
There are, however, examples of courts providing legal redress for transgender people escaping violence. An October 2015 Delhi High Court decision upheld the rights of a 19 year old Indian transgender man to self-determination and dignity. Shivy Bhat had been abused by his family in California and then on a visit to India was detained by other family members who confiscated his passport and United States green card. ^164
Image #3: Text reading: Across the Asia Pacific region, many transgender women describe sex work as one of the very few employment options available to them. (start highlight) There is less research on the employment experiences of transgender men. However, many will have been raised as females, which may mean less access to formal education and greater unpaid caring responsibilities within the family. This made include being forced to marry at a young age to lighten the demands on limited family resources. All these factors are likely to limit their ability to access decent work.
Image #4: Text reading: In parts of Asia, such as the Philippines, (start highlight) families have made abduction complaints against butch lesbians and transgender men as a way to break up their relationships with women. (end highlight) These charges have been laid under laws to prevent kidnapping, illegal detention, and 'crimes against liberty'. ^195
btw i have seen some people using ''birthday girl'' to refer to transphobic trans women and i Do Not Like That. don't do that shit.
primarily because i think its fucking weird to have catty little insults for trans people we disagree with, even and perhaps especially when we disagree with them over actually harmful things they've done or rhetoric they contribute to. its unhelpful and adds fuel to the fire of emotion-first "my pain justifies being an asshole, if you want me to be kinder you just don't get my suffering" trans infighting, and no matter how good it feels i do not think it is right! it hurts all of us whether directly or indirectly because it contributes to a toxic culture, and it is genuinely poison to organizing socially and politically against patriarchy.
but also, on a practical level (which as a pragmatist i do not think is actually separate from the ethical level), its a bad fucking look! it is weird and shitty that people are so invested in coming up with catty little insults, or just adopting pre-existing slurs, to describe trans people they think are being transmisogynistic instead of just saying they are being transmisogynistic, and i think it is illustrative of the trends prevalent in the "transandrophobia isn't real" sphere that this is a thing people engage in and defend so much. if you agree with that point, you should understand that turning around and calling trans women "birthday girls" weakens that criticism! it makes it look hypocritical and easily written off!
when done right, taking the moral high ground should strengthen your arguments by making it so that people cannot argue you are being cruel or vindictive or bigoted when you make your point. it may be less satisfying but it is all around better for all of us. if you genuinely want there to be less cruelty from trans people towards trans people, you have to take some responsibility for the role you play in that. we all do! if The Discourse is really pissing you off, find ways to process that anger and frustration and pain that don't contribute to the very thing causing them in the first place.
#get peer reviewed#also for fuck's sake do NOT pull out any variation of feminazi.#i've seen it once or twice and if you pull that shit you are being a bigot#incredibly counterproductive and DEEPLY embarassing.#no I don't care what they said to you don't fucking do it.
get peer reviewed x2
never let your opponent dictate what the moral high road is, but that doesn't mean you stop giving a fuck about morality. taking a firm ethical stance on how you engage with other people, especially other oppressed people, will ALWAYS do a million times more for actual liberation than the cathartic mud-slinging ever will. you are hurting everyone when you pull this kind of bullshit.
[Image ID: Tumblr tags from butts-bouncing-on-the-beltway reading: taking the emotional high road in a lateral aggression inducing situation can suck but is so deeply worthwhile i promise even if just because you get to know that you are living by your own moral and ethical standards but its always more things too lol /End ID]
One consistent aspect of anti-transmasculinity I've noticed (particularly when it comes from other trans people) is the implication or outright statement that they want their own oppression.
In this post, for example, transmasculine people are described as wanting to be viewed as different kind of men, to whom different rules apply.
When really, this is simply trans men describing their lived reality. Trans men are, objectively, viewed and treated as a different kind of man, and experience different rules and standards then cis men do. This is assuming that they're even seen as a type of man in the first place, which is not true for many trans men.
Which is interesting, because these same people have no issues when trans women described being degendered or other-sexed. Furthermore, they understand intuitively that trans women are treated with different rules and standards than pericis women.
But when trans men explain similar concepts, that they're overall affected by different systems of oppression than pericis men, suddenly they "want" to be seen as a different kind of man.
They believe that trans men are asking for it.
i haven't fully put this into words, but i do think there is something fundamentally transphobic about this argument.
there's a lot of talk about "basic transphobia" and "just transphobia" and whatnot. but like. it feels like in the desperation to be accepted into cisfeminism, we often cede the ground that transness in itself — not merely when validated by a binary, cis-accessible gender identity — is bad theory, because it blurs the lines too much.
like. what is being critiqued here? trans men correctly identify that, in our material lived experiences, we are not the same as cis men, and that understanding our material political-social circumstances requires starting from that understanding.
this is not incompatible with insisting on trans men's manhood. if this woman actually spoke to a large number of these trans men, she'd find there's a large amount of diversity — including people who aren't even actually trans men, they are just transmasculinized and thus need these conversations as well. there are trans men who feel strongly their gender is just "man" and that they are a man in the same way a cis man is a man, and yet, also must make sense of his lived experiences of being treated as a woman and a dyke and a tranny far more than he is treated as a cis man. analyzing your experiences as a man does not require sacrificing analysis of your experience as trans.
is he supposed to ignore his material position... for what? for the ideological purity? he needs to prove to... who, exactly, that he's a Real Man by insisting he's the positionaly same as cis men? should he just roleplay as a cis man for your comfort?
and again, why must we downplay trans people's transness? why is this not allowed to be central in our analysis, even moreso than the specific (almost always binary) gender identity? why do we treat transness as a just modifier for a binary, cis-centric idea of gender? this idea of a transfeminism that is only for women who happen to be trans, with transness pushed as far to the periphery as possible but excused because the people doing the pushing are trans, so that makes it trans + feminism, right?
just like. as a nonbinary person, it is so incredibly obvious how exorsexism / misandrogyny / transphobia warps our idea of transfeminism. people who consider themselves "transfeminist" get mad at trans men for centering their transness. why the fuck even bother calling it transfeminism if you are gonna get mad when other trans people go any deeper than "cisfeminism but with diy E" !! this is the same kind of person who insist that there is no material analysis to be done of nonbinary experiences, that nonbinary gender identity is all counterrevolutionary bourgeoisie idealism.
it's dressed up in Marxism, but fundamentally, i truly believe this attitude comes from deep and unanalyzed internalized transphobia that people like her can justify to themselves, because it's the kind of internalized transphobia that hurts other kinds of trans people first.
[Image ID: Text reading: it is extremely sobering as a trans woman trying to articulate a materialist analysis of her own position politically socially and historically As a woman, and to be not only confronted with but confronted by — that is to say, challenged by — a trans man whose explicit out-loud position boils down to "wait now, hold on, i actually want to be thought of as a different kind of man to whom different rules apply and who is only a man in some situations — when you guys [sic] say you're women you're actually serious?" and to be clear i don't think this is true of most trans men or is in any way like, essential to trans men, but it keeps happening. how many of these guys are there?? /End ID]
if i could give one piece of advice to newly transitioning trans men, it's that it's 100% possible to find a community of people (including women!) who don't treat you as a threat, and the people trying to convince you otherwise are not your friends
Also, perhaps, have we considered that it's actually really bad that we treat closeted trans women (and closeted nonbinary people, and frankly cis men too) this way? Like. It's a bad thing that trans women are treated like distrustful monsters for """"being men"""" before coming out by one demographic and then are also treated like distrustful monsters after coming out for being trans by another. That's not a sign of a culture with a healthy relationship with gender in the slightest!!!
Have we considered that treating people as inherently dangerous or distrustful by virtue of their gender alone is in fact, the very gender essentialism that perpetuates radical feminism in our spaces and that is something that we should be working on stamping out?
I am genuinely sorry that people across multiple different identity lines experience this shit because no trans person should be treated like a distrustful monster just by virtue of their gender identity before or after coming out.
*extends my hand* Let's examine the ways we allow gender essentialism to invade our spaces and harm other trans people and put an end to this cycle of gender essentialist abuse together!
[Image ID: Tweet from i’m in (blue heart emoji) blue (blue heart emoji) (@/ dyedCerulean) reading: I don't think a lot of non trans men/mascs realize that being treated like a nuisance/threat then saying "it's bc ur a man now! sorry:)" is like. a pretty huge reason a lot of us stay closeted or outright detransition x.com/doggirljesus/s.…
Quote tweet from aria the ninth (@/ An_Aria_Blooms) on Jul 14, 2026 reading: The most key and critical part of being a decent man in community with (especially queer) women is this btw. You have to on some level accept that women will give All Men shit and be distrustful and wary of you. Most trans girls I know occupied this space before transitioning. /End ID]
