A letter to my fellow trans sisters – transmisogyny is certainly awful to experience and ruining society as we know it, but the solution is not to project our frustration onto trans men and non-binary folks as if they are somehow causing the problem and not the cisgender dominated patriarchy.
Let's be honest with ourselves, us trans women grew up as teenage boys; not that we were boys but that society saw us as boys. Young men are bombarded with misogynistic propaganda every single day, and nobody is immune to that. If you think you're the exception, you're wrong
Toxic masculinity doesn't just disappear when you start taking estrogen. You have to actively, critically examine the beliefs you take for granted and unlearn the bad ideas society has taught you. But so many of you have assumed, just as TERFs do, "well, I'm a woman now, so I can't possibly be sexist," and then start talking about so-called "TMEs" the way incels talk about women (including us!)
Stop making death and rape threats against trans men (especially children, the fuck is wrong with you all!?)
Stop using gross, misogynistic slurs against trans men and enbies ("transandrocunt", "zipper-tits", "theyfab" etc.). Surely you can see that's no better than when we get called "shemales" and "sissies", right?
Stop pretending that growing up as a girl first has zero lasting impact on a trans man's psyche, especially if the man in question grew up in the global south or underprivileged rural areas
Stop pretending that trans men being ignored and invisible is privilege and not erasure (we've already had this discussion years ago with bisexuals having "straight-passing privilege")
Stop all of that. You're making online trans and queer spaces worse for everyone, yourself included. Transfeminism and anti-transandrophobia aren't opposites. They go hand-in-hand! In fact, they're the exact same thing. You're never going to break the gender binary down if you keep acting like being a trans woman is more valid than other genders
Trans women, stand up for your brothers and enby siblings instead of beating them down, especially in this day and age when governments around the world want to fucking murder and detransition all of us. When they speak, say it louder!
If you're already doing that, I love you and you need to keep doing it until we make the world a better place for all trans folks <3
United we stand, divided we fall
An addition: I'm seeing quite a few people in the comments talking about male privilege. Male privilege and internalized misogyny are two totally different things.
Male privilege is a reward patriarchy gives to men who conform to society's norms, which exist to manipulate men into being more subservient workers and soldiers. It is highly conditional and taken away as soon as any "man" (AMAB person) expresses femininity. This is NOT what my post is talking about.
Internalized misogyny is having beliefs influenced by misogyny without realizing it. Men and women are taught to view femininity as lesser (in the latter case, this causes women to see themselves as lesser), and this can express itself on a subconscious level. If you think trans men/enbies, who are feminine insofar as being AFAB, are inherently inferior, that is rooted in misogyny.
Also, I appear to have misunderstood what toxic masculinity is and wrongly equated it with internalized misogyny. That might be where some of the confusion is coming from. I've fixed that and some other things. Apologies
Let me elaborate a bit, since some people think I'm talking about "male socialization" (in the sense that TERFs use it). Thanks to @twohumansinatrenchcoat for helping me find a better way to explain this idea.
Internalized misogyny has two dimensions:
1. Feeling that masculinity is better than femininity
2. Feeling you personally are better than others, for arbitrary reasons
#1 is misogyny in the literal sense obviously, but those who are taught to feel #1 also necessarily learn #2 at the same time. #2 is the learned behaviour that doesn't disappear with HRT alone.
Unlearning #1 is easy enough since a) it's antithetical to transfemininity and b) for a feminine person, it's a negative feeling the ego naturally wishes to avoid.
But I'm seeing many fellow trans women who have neglected to also unlearn #2, which has to be done separately, because it's a positive feeling that boosts the ego, especially if you use practised egoism to cope with your mental health issues like I do (my PFP is Jax TADC for a reason).
These trans women rightfully embrace femininity while wrongfully redirecting their undue feelings of superiority and entitlement to non-femininity (i.e. masculinity); trans men and AFAB enbies are easier targets than cis men for this because trans men don't in fact have meaningful male privilege (those who say they do misunderstand what male privilege is).





















