#agab discourse

[mybloms]

My opinions on "tme privilege" and "afab privilege"

DISCLAIMER: I am not against tme and tma as terminology, I use them frequently on my own time. I do have dislikes about Julia Serrano’s framework and how it’s used online. Also don’t read this expecting me to validate any of the privileges above.

For one, I think people are being dishonest when they pretend that they don't believe in afab privilege, just tme, when many rants include how tme's "weaponize agab" and are able to be in spaces due to said agab. that is a pretty consistent talking point in online transfeminism.

with julia serano, who didn't even coin tme/tma nor does her recent work even suggest that she agrees with this framework, her idea of transmisogyny and her conclusions made about experiences of trans people that are not transfem are grossly misrepresenting and ignorant. This is obviously going to affect the tme/tma convo since they’re basing their theories on her framework. the minute I knew I did not believe in seeing her framework as 100% needing of belief or support was when she downplayed butch and masculine women's experiences, still suggesting that they have power or are not as prosecuted as we think for their masculinity. very innacurate. What's funny is that I don't even dislike the words tme/tma bc it's the equivalent to someone saying nontransfem to me (bc that is how it is actually used, in reality every trans person is affected by transmisogyny and their forms of oppressions bolster it as well as vice versa).

to me, a lot of the discourse seems to be divided into two sectors:

- misandry is real and why should I care about spreading mra rhetoric that causes violence for women when I think it’s just easier to say transmisandry?

- transmisogyny is the highest form of oppression and let me sneak some mra rhetoric about female privilege!

tme and tma is just about being transfem, what is a transfem in the first place? bc if it's just a label, none of yall should be upset when other trans people use it (you require "afabs" to be intersex to be transfem, but still manage to police that asw), but you do sooo... is it the experience of transitioning to femininity? feminising yourself? from a transsexual binarist perspective, yes! but then you realize that a body is not inherently any of those things and it is something society imposes on you. so then is it about societal masculinization? cause many cis women experience this, mainly black and intersex women...so what is it again? the problem with a lot of trans discourse is that everyone poses as if they hate agab or are against frameworks being based on that, but never is it really in practice. tbh, most people view and classify transfem as "once assigned male but now transitions to female" which then excludes a lot of people. I know this is semantics, but I think if we are going to be so nitpicky about the use of agab or any term denoting what society forces us to be...this is allowed. what's funny about a lot of theorists like this is trans women can refer to the sex society imposes on them and not have that be thought of as weaponization or "theymab" behavior...but when this logic is applied to other types of trans people, it's suddenly malicious.

Believe it or not, feminism that actually understands patriarchy would not exclude non-binary and trans men because you should understand the root of transphobia is misogyny (EDIT: looks like I’m saying transfeminism uniquely doesnt, no. But there’s a problem in general with not including trans men and non-binary adequately into frameworks without treating them as diet women). It is like with gay men. They are still affected by misogyny bc homophobia is rooted in that. to a lot, "weaponizing" agab simply means trans person they view as "afab" who does not automatically erase or dissociate from cis standards imposed on them that are actively trying to take away their rights to even escape that assignment in the first place (detrans legislation). And I think about this account who made a post about how tme trans people are upset that trans women are the women of the trans community, and I think this just about sums up everything about this discourse and why a lot of radical feminist transfems will deny or have cognitive dissonance about how other trans people are viewed in society. it is the most interesting projection.

any sort of patriarchal oppression most be owned by women. to be oppressed is to be weak and feminized so typical twitter transsexual men will also join in these conversations and try to deny that this is a reality for most (often still including them). it's not about analyzing patriarchy. it's not about liberation. it's about "does this treat me as a man or woman?" it's about denying anything that does not immediately affirm my gender. we are having these convos bc many white transfeminists think any acknowledgement of gendered oppression that isn't based on binary womanhood is a psyop to take away their womanhood. its odd bc when we talk about how society sees us, many can understand this with chasers and terfs going on disturbing rants about how they want to keep these "l1ttle g1rl2" breasts for themselves and their enjoyment (disgusting), but when it comes to acknowledging that this will impact us and will lead to being affected by misogyny, suddenly that's evil afabery. 💀 and again, I do not believe that trans people are incapable of weaponizing their agabs or that there is not trans people who play into birth sex to invalidate others and say things about others experiences...I feel that the scrutiny and invalidation is just disproportionate.

and this is of course a result of misogyny and exorsexism...because thinking being considered female suddenly means you're less likely to be serious about transitioning or be a tru "valid" transsexual is extremely patriarchal but no one wants to acknowledge this bc they either dc or it's suddenly not misogyny anymore bc these people are not real women...which in that case y'all are blatantly admitting that you want to pick and choose when you consider them to be hysterical females.

also it's extremely funny to hear online transfeminists go: "you don't experience misogyny" to any trans person that isn't transfem...but when trans men analyze this perspective as being a trans MAN suddenly it's "well that's bc of misogyny anyway". you like to pick and choose.

this is how I feel about weaponizing discourse and whether tme privilege is real:

1. yes, any trans person can leverage their identity over trans women. this is well documented.

2. I do not believe the existence of this suggests anything other than lateral violence. you ask ppl to give ACTUAL ways trans men receive patriarchal benefits and it's always them doing this: ignoring the fact that terfs and cis peoples viewing of us as "female" always comes with removal of autonomy and violence...so it instead gets reframed as a privilege that we should be grateful of. We instead deserve to be excluded from feminist conversations.

2. them passing as cis men, and I'm sorry, but if you have to hide that identity to gain privilege, how are you being privileged for said identity? people with genuine systemic power based on their identity do not have to lie or hide that identity to even access that.

3. this is just how patriarchy works, men oppress women. this one never accurately addresses non-binary people and we are almost always treated as passive participants in society who experience neither privilege or oppression, or we are transmasc or transfem lite and that's how we get our shit deducted anyway.

a lot of this would be solved if we understood the patriarchy and misogyny as gendered oppression and not just man vs woman. anybody who thinks non-binary ppl are experiencing less oppression than binary women or little oppression in general is wrong. we dont have white colonizers forcing us into the box woman and man for yall to be thinking this. but most who say this are white so I expect it atp...

[mybitakes]

My opinions on whether having a connection to "womanhood" is theyfab/harmful behaviour and how we can reconstruct the conversations so we can address exorsexism, transmi/sogyny, and anti-transmasculinity accurately

note: tme (ot "t/me") is being used to describe someone who does not go through transfem specific oppression, I know there are criticisms for this but I do not believe in forcing myself to fit into frameworks that were not originally created with me in mind, it is a losing battle. I am also aware serano has said she does think that other trans people can incidentally experience transmisogyny, however, most of her work and actions communicate to me that this term still is not meant to include all trans people. It is her term so I am fine with that and am expending my energy into other frameworks. so please do not get preachy to me in the comments about needing to be tme/tma critical, I am NOT against the critique of those terms, FARRRRRR from it actually.

I really do not understand conversations that bludgen trans people who feel a connection to womanhood who are not women. most of the arguments I see are like "oh well there's people that use it as a weapon against trans women to say they have privilege", and that's not right, but there's still nothing harmful or incorrect with feeling a connection to womanhood in general. I see people getting upset at random

people who have shown no signs of that behaviour and are purely talking about their own identity and experiences. a lot of people in this discourse view non-binary t/me people as if we have to be either diet trans men or quirky cis women. it only works to flattens our experiences so any points we make can be easier to dismiss.some of us do still id as women because we are multigender. To be clear I do not trust people...

...who use agab language to convey this message because that is too reminiscent of "afab housing" and "afab only spaces", but the experience of relating to who you were before transition is not bad. it's very normal and not an uncommon experience. the problem is the conversation around this treats being coerced/forced into being a woman as a matter of personal opinion and is watered down to an essential part of being assigned female (ie being assigned female must mean you have a connection to womanood, or the good ole' female socialization). I think it's imperative that when this happens we make it clear that these experiences are a result of systematic factors, not an inherent, divine connection that comes with having a vagina.

In an attempt to combat socialization theory, we start harassing trans men who point out that they cannot easily just access male privilege by transitioining and that sometimes medically transitioning is inaccessible to them. the hostility people have when it is said that trans men do not immediately get granted privilege is a result of feminist frameworks still being largely created by cis people and based on cissexist and binaristic ideas of society. to be oppressed for your gender is to be a woman for many. for some reason pointing out that trans men are forced into womanhood and are denied this access to male privilege is infantilization and just another day of "theyfab's theyfabing"...instead of calling out that the act of being forced into womanhood is an oppression in and of itself and that is something most if not all trans men have to experience daily. pointing this out is not a desire to be considered women, but to acknowledge that patriarchy doesn't exist as simply "man oppress woman" when we actually put the work in to acknowledge trans people. I think many people forget, and this includes the divine femalehood afabs, that being forced into being a woman and being oppressed for not falling in line is systematic. it does not matter if you personally do not identify with being "female" or not, it's going to be forced on you regardless. this is violent, even for cis women. "womanhood", on the other hand, is a term mostly used to describe something personal. it's only natural to have most trans men be averse to identifying with womanhood when most of the times the ways they find out they are actually men is by not identifying with typical things from girlhood in the first place.

I also hate when people say "only afabs cling to their assigned sex" because that's not true and I dont think cling is the right word either. I know many straight trans women who still identify with the community they had with gay men and still frequent their spaces. and also, when we are talking about being oppressed and forced into womanhood, I don't think it's hard to understand why someone isn't just going to fully dissociate from the way they were treated before transitioning as if it's that simple. many are still being treated like women even during their transition. even when they pass, the government in america is actively making legislation so that you cannot pass in legal contexts at all, many are already in that stage in other countries and are fighting tooth and nail to finally get out of it. and then you look at trans t/me's in third world countries that have even stricter/patriarchal laws policing gender. it's baffling to me seeing the things that is reported over there and the most whitest trans person from america will still think it's as simple as not identifying with womanhood and gaining privilege when you transition. many do not even get the choice to "opt out". period.

It also did not escape me that many people view the existence of certain things affecting t/me trans people as a declaration that trans women never go through x thing. if we can understand being forced into gender as a child is inherently oppressive (even for cis kids), we can understand that regardless of that childs real identity the outcomes of "socialization" and privilege isn't inherent to assigned gender. if we can understand that being forced into gender is oppressive, i do not see how trans girls being forced into boyhood is a privilege when most of it is reinforced with violence and is an oppressive experience in and of itself. the forcing of gender on trans people is not a privilege, so the existence of trans people saying they were forced to be women and were (and still are) being hurt by that is not registered as offensive nor does it come off as theyfab to me. but I understand that for many it is transphobic to not ignore the trans part of how most of us experience gender and just pretend we go through things exactly like cis people.

also easiest way to tell on yourself that you are harassing people for not distancing themselves enough from "womanhood" by whatever standards you've come up with, and NOT because you want transmisogyny to stop is to misgender them and call them theyfabs. I feel like we have become so desensitized to people misgendering others and calling them theygabs that we forget that those things are inherently bad and transphobic. they are not oopsie poopsies. and they for sure are not liberating shit.

[tauon07]

taking away "tme" and "tma" until you learn to stop turning sets of 2 words into the gender binary

[pingintech]

Wanting to have a discussion about agab and afab trans women and amab trans men but knowing that in doing so if I talk about my experiences Ill have to disclose my agab and then people will see that and go off assumptions and I wont be able to have a discussion anymore because "sides"

Anyway I appreciate you talking about these topics and Id join in if it werent for the above. Im not comfortable sharing agab even when it is relevant because it feels so used to check whether you are a "real trans person" or not that I fear itll invalidate my identity one way or another (im multigender. According to the whole agab discourse at least one of my genders doesnt count as trans, even tho I know they also hate labels like cistrans because then they cant use cis to refer to a non trans person and that pisses them off for some reason)

its bullshit people act this way to begin with agab dont mean shit about who you are as a person nor dictate the experiences youve had or the life youve lived

you can ofc use labels like cistrans if you want ofc no one should have any say in the labels others use to describe their gender identity and i have no say either in how you should feel abt such labels or their relation to you but i would want to remind you that being multigender doesnt make one half cis in the same way being bisexual doesnt make anyone half straight

there is no disparate half of you that is the "truly trans" part of you and the other that isnt if you are trans* that is true of the whole of you (id argue the same applies for plural systems with trans headmates for even the cis headmates live within a genderqueer system)

transgender is when you feel euphoria as or identify with a gender identity (or lack of gender identity) different from the one assigned at birth and in that respect there can certainly be said to be parts of you that are not transgender

but trans* the umbrella term is a unifying social one one that describes ones stance in society as being outside of gendered norms and expectations one is trans* if their gender identity (or expression) is outside of what society expects and demands of them and trans* is a label that unites people who are treated similarly in society based on sex and gender "deviancy"

much in the same way gay describes men who like men but gay also describes a community label a term to unite those who are oppressed on the basis of them being queer a term that describes unity and love and embracing and celebrating that which sets us apart from the cultural hegemony

even if a part of you is cisgender the odds that you will be treated like a Cis person with all the same privileges and level of respect and benefits from society for gender conformity are not very high at all which means you will always have a place with trans* people each and every part of you

imma make things even more clear about where i stand on this in a way i suspect will upset many but i would say that fully monogender cisgender people who dress in gender nonconforming ways like butch women and femboys fully belong in the trans* community full stop they are family sure you can argue they can simply conform to gender norms at any time but id argue thats also true about many transgender people if the ways you express yourself and your gender are outside of societal norms you are trans* we should support and celebrate you

trans* denotes not just that the way society treats you poorly is an issue of trans liberation trans* does not simply denote you deserve a seat at the table but as well its solidarity you have a community with us and we support each other and love each other and are proud of the ways trans* people exist it is a thing to be celebrated even despite the ways in which we are subjugatedp

anyway all of that to say if you say you are trans then you are absolutely trans and there is nothing anyone can say or do to invalidate that or "prove you wrong" you are the only person who can know whether or not you are trans agab discourse be damned no one deserves that information and that information is at best a single instance in your life a thing that was done to you it is not a thing that defines you and trans people more than anyone should understand this

[pingintech]

you're talking past me and you kept using asab language. i'm out🙏

the discussion is literally about how ones agab doesnt invalidate whether or not someone is trans correctly (it doesnt) and while i agree that agab language is unuseful and agab discourse should be discarded wholely its also important to recognize that even people who uses agab language as a self identifier are still who they say they are until they say otherwise

i hold a very firm stance against transvestigating people whether its a cis person doing it or not

trans people who identify in ways we disagree with are still trans

trans people who believe things we do not believe are still trans

trans people who suck are still trans

and my intent is not to speak past you in fact im speaking directly to you but i am also speaking about the ways in which we engage in trans discourse as a whole as thats what this conversation is about on its fundamentals

and i think you should do some soul searching

personally i want to be trans i am trans and i wouldnt have it any other way and it saddens me that you want so badly to dispose of your transness that you must in someway think it takes away from your being a woman or makes you in any way less of a woman

i hope you can in time see that being trans is not some curse but a gift of being able to take part in the act of creation a gift of being able to define oneself in your own image a gift that is imo quite beautiful

[pingintech]

you mentioned it in some reblog but just throwing this out there what are your thoughts on the transandrophobia / tma/tme discourse? i broke things off w/ a mutual because of a lot of posts -- idk 'dunking on transandrodorks' or something which felt kinda off and some other personal stuff but i dont really know a lot about the discourse (as a trans guy/masc)

yeah i've actually made like a LOT of posts on the matter at this point tbh

this is going to be lengthy so i ask you to strap in and its going to be in technicolor vision

on the surface transmisogyny affected (TMA) sounds like a good framework to talk about people affected by a specific form of transmisogyny except that unfortunately the person who coined the term transmisogyny julia serano as important as her work is in transfeminism her biggest blind spot has always been a lack of experience interacting with trans men and their community and as a result unfortunately a lot of her analyses of what trans men tend to experience is fairly surface level there are a lot of people who (like julia serano for some reason) believe that transmisogyny under the hyper specific definition coined for the word by serano is a thing only experienced by transfemmes which in theory would make sense trans women face a specific form of misogyny and transphobia because of their gender and according to serano trans men experience traditional misogyny pre transition and oppositional sexism (which is itself an extension of transmisogyny) except this framework fundamentally again ignores the experience of trans men

crucially ironically it ignores what being TRANS*means socially in fact and that fundamentally trans people are treated as how theyre perceived and not as they are transphobes cannot in fact on sight always knows what your gender is based on gender expression and they will always respond according to their own perception of you trans men and trans women get confused for each other constantly and to act as if only trans women experience a specific form of oppression legitimizes the accuracy of bigoted transvestigators "they can always tell" after all

now people active in tma/tme disourse would call this misdirected transmisogyny someone mistook a trans man for a trans woman and thus enacted transmisogyny but in that case we must examine what misdirected means because misdirected implies it was unintentional in this instance for one the purpose of a system is what it does if this is a thing that happens often enough then you start to wonder how truly unintentional is this societal pressure if it can "accidentally" affect trans men so frequently then how many times must it happen before it stops being a gaff

as well (and this is an actual argument people have proffered) misdirected implies that should one find out that the person theyre harassing is in fact not the correct target (a trans woman) they would change course and stop harassing them this belief that a trans man being assaulted in a womans bathroom for the belief they are a trans women has the option to correct them and say oh no im a trans man actually is one that exposes a lack of lived experience with assault bigots are far more likely to dig in their heels than ever admit theyre wrong and the fact the person they may be insulting might potentially have a set of genitalia they didnt expect doesnt actually lower the chances of the assault becoming physical or sexual in nature

and lastly the idea that transmisogyny aimed at people who are not transfem being misdirected implies that transfem is itself a single solid category is it misdirected if it happens to someone who is bigender simultaneously a trans woman and a trans man? is it misdirected if it happens to a trans woman who is genderfluid on a day when her gender and presentation are not traditionally feminine? is it misdirected if it happens to someone who is still questioning whether or not theyre transfem

and an important part of how this argument manifests is that people tend to pivot and argue that transmisogyny occurs to transfems based on specific anatomical traits and features** the perceived masculine under the perceived feminine and many go so far as to suggest that the reason it only happens to trans women is because they were assigned male at birth

this of course initially ignores the fact that transfem is not a category exclusive to people who were amab ie afab genderfluid people afab multigender people afab demigirls intersex people for whom they have a complicated relationship with their agab and sig detransitioners who as well have a complicated relationship with the gender theyre perceived as

so the next logical step for tma/tme discoursers is to either question this framework or dig their heels in if tma only affects transwomen but afab trans women exist either you accept the model that anyone can be *transfeminized* have their identity taken for someone who is transfemme regardless of their actual identity and then be treated like someone who is transfemme regardless of their identity or conversely *transmasculinized* or you start believing that afab trans woman this utterly new concept to you must be some secret psyop to delegitimize the struggles of trans women ignoring the fact that genderfluid and bigender people and intersex people and demigender people have literally always existed

as well again the agab argument comes back to this belief that a trans man being treated like a trans women in a bathroom could somehow get out of it by showing his vagina or his drivers license with a little f on it except trans people do not always have the genitals theyre born with intersex trans people are often born with genitals different from what might be expected theres an entire process in order to change the letter on drivers licenses and showing someone your genitals does in no world decrease the odds of an assault become less violent of physical

and this in the orange the biggest most obvious theory vs practice rebuttal of misdirected transmisogyny is also in fact a partial rebuttal of transfeminized/transmasculinized because while these are good concepts on the surface that address the fact we are treated based on how we are perceived fundamentally that doesnt change the fact that there isnt actually a way out of the situation in which you are being assaulted in the bathroom on the basis of your gender

SO trans men experience transmisogyny full stop in fact as oppositional sexism is an extension of transmisogyny and oppositional sexism affects everyone including cis people albeit not on a broader structural and systemic level its pretty easy to argue that transmisogyny affects everyone (directly) and even on a purely semantic level transmisogyny affects everyone (indirectly) because it is a broad sweeping systemic form of oppression that deeply permeates out into society if a is person has an opinion about trans women based on beliefs ingrained in them by the cultural hegemony or in opposition with the beliefs ingrained in them by the cultural hegemony they are affected by transmisogyny (societal force) (indirectly)

so now lets look at the other half of the equation tme and the biggest flaw with the tma/tme framework tme stands for transmisogyny exempt

except as discussed no one is exempt from the affects (directly or indirectly) of transmisogyny at best tme is like telling kids in our beginner biology course that there are two sets of sex linked chromosomes xx and xy its and easy and accessible lie thats not intended to mislead but rather intended to set ground work for more conversations later except then you end up with adults arguing about how there are only two genders xx and xy conflating sex with gender and denying the existence of intersex people because in order for them to now better understand biology they need to unlearn what was taught to them in basic biology

if we tell people only transfemmes are affected by transmisogyny and everyone else is exempt we close the door on ourselves being able to easily have conversations about oppositional sexism the most common form of transmisogyny that cis people face

now of course that doesnt (AT ALL) mean transmisogyny as a word is useless in fact many people discussing tma/tme would argue that tma on the surface means those affected by transmisogyny but more broadly its a foot in the door to talk about how transfemmes are those most structurally and systemically affected by transmisogyny which is valid and a good thing for us to be discussing

except then you consider the fact youve made a false binary here in tma/tme is tme means those lesser affected by transmisogyny on a systemic or structural level you notice suddenly we are defining who has it worse who is most negatively harmed by a societal force that affects all trans people where is the line how much suffering must one experience as the result of transmisogyny before they are tma

and for trans men even with the understanding that tma is those most affected systemically by transmisogyny the answer to that last question overwhelmingly is that they could experience all of the transmisogyny in the world and people would still argue that based on their gender or their agab they are not tme

so even serano recognizes that trans men experience a unique form of oppression not just as trans people but as trans men specifically and yet a common refrain you hear people say is that they should just make their own word *surely* they dont experience transmisogyny because for some reason people believe gendered oppression FOR TRANS PEOPLE is locked in based on agab or ones own gender identity okay whatever

so a trans man says okay ill bite and creates his own word transandrophobia a term coined by a mixed race mestizaje trans man to explain the kind of oppression trans men experience on the basis of their perceived masculinity as marginalized men (something a hispanic man would have ample experience with for the record) and yet even tho people created their own term to talk about gendered expression trans men experience people will act as if its some conspiracy to delegitimize transmisogyny or theyll act as if it implies that trans women are oppressing trans men when in truth just like transmisogyny the people perpetrating and enforcing transmisogyny and transandrophobia both against trans people are cis people and the systems that keep trans people down (obviously)

a common argument against transandrophobia as a term (again a term trans men were forced into making as even the most good faith actors recognize men face unique gendered oppression but still deny them the right to call it what it is (transmisogyny)) is that it legitimizes the concept of misandry something a loud minority of disingenuous cis! men rallied behind with the express intent of arguing against the existence of misogyny as a societal force and or used misandry as a concept to argue that they deserve to have their aggrieved masculinity (the promises of benefits from the patriarchy they were given but never fulfilled upon babes money power) fulfilled

except heres the bombshell despite the disingenuous cis! misandrists misandry IS real EPECIALLY (but not exclusively) for marginalized men and misandry affects men on a systemic structural level

people love to ignore the fact that many of the first (well intentioned) mens rights groups rallied around paternity pay and custody rights as men routinely lose their children in custody arrangements even if they were the more fit and loving parent as well men are less likely to be believed when theyre sexually assaulted (think terry crews) and men are typically seen as overly aggressive and dangerous as a result of the patriarchy

this is especially true for men of color who simulteaneously are treated with all the worst assumptions of masculinity and none of the positives*** they are treated as twice as aggressive and scary and sexually predacious and yet they are also infantilized and called boys they are denied any real benefits from the patriarchy because the patriarchy is built on white supremacy and they are harmed by the very model of masculinity by which white! men benefit from

of course black men do still hold power over black women and unfortunately that means that people will abuse that power dynamic in an attempt to feel as if they have control in an attempt to seek out the source of their aggrieved masculinity

but that doesnt negate the very real ways in which ESPECIALLY marginalized men are treated negatively explicitly on the basis of their gender just as trans men who enact or perpetrate transmisogyny on trans women do not negate the fact that they are treated negatively based on their perceived masculinity as marginalized men

*in the body of this in in its entirety i want to make it clear when i talk about trans people i mean ALL trans* people transgender transsexual transvestite crossdressers drag femboys 2s nonbinary and intersex

**ignoring the fact that anyone can have those features and in fact features and anatomical traits that are perceived to be more masculine are fairly common in women of color

***trans women are treated similarly with all of the negative assumptions of masculinity with none of the positives but also with all of the negative assumptions of femininity with none of the positives although a lot of that is forgiven for trans women who happen to be white while its even worse for trans women of color

[mybitakes]

Conversations around AGAB terminology and "sex based oppression" need to be more transparent

I feel like the community just performatively hates on agab terminology because most of the discourse and the way we theorize about oppression almost always somehow mentions how we are assigned at birth. whether that be indirectly or implied. just ask any agab "hater" who can and cannot be transfem or transmasc and how are we classifying that. im still seeing people use theyfab religiously and characterizing random people on the internet with "afabness" regardless of their actual relationship to their assigned sex. they will tell a nonbinary person they are not allowed to be feminine because that's what women do and then act like they don't care for agab. if I'm nonbinary, what the fuck does me being feminine have to do with anything? why should it matter that I look like a girl unless you care about the fact that I was assigned one and you don't believe im deviating from it enough? be honest.

I think the reason why we keep coming back to agab terminology is because the sex we are forced into and demanded to be still affects how we live our day to day lives and we wish to describe that. those expectations of sex affects us systematically. people who are saying sex based oppression does not exist are also not being honest, intersexism and "female" babies infanticide rates says otherwise. what is actually true is that sex is not binary and impossible to change, that trans women do experience oppression for their sex. most feminist theory talking about sex based oppression has been cissexist, intersexist, and transmisogynistic so of course people weaponizing that think transfems should be automatically excluded or benefiting from this. any grasp on transsexual theory should tell you that trans women are affected by sex based oppression.

I think we need to rethink how we address agab language because it seems nobody truly wants to let it go and I do not think that is wrong per se. I wish people were honest about it so we can take the steps to actually reclaim it to avoid devolving into terfslop. I also think people saying "agab has no affect on anything but what the doctors say you were" are not being honest with themselves. the sex we are assigned with and the expectations after that have everything to do with the fact we are now being persecuted for living as our ACTUAL genders and sex. the problem is that people think that assigning and expectation is supposed to be a privilege for trans women. The whole female/male socialization theory for children is annoying too. Yes it is true that children who are expected to be boys will have different rules compared to a girl. but all children are oppressed and being robbed of their autonomy by being forced into a gendered box. it is not neutral and most children who try to deviate from it are punished HARSHLY. they literally have zero rights and control over the expectations being forced on them, that's not a privilege.

I also feel like we are focusing our theory too much on what TERF's say. I hate when we center it on that because they are a largely western thing. the way most transphobes act, while terfs definitely have some influence in it, is still independent of radical feminism's goals and desires. we need to move past that.