I am Mera (she/her). I am a black and Native American Marxist transfeminist who creates theory on underdiscussed topics.
I am a womanist, lesbian, intersex transgender woman.
Temporarily I am removing the link to my essay. It will be back up once it is altered with the intended changes.
For my other intro post.
At birth I was designated female. That event has impacted my experience with and relationship to transfemininity/transmisogyny. Regardless, like any other trans person, I do not identify with the gender assigned to me at birth. I identify as a woman, of which I was not assigned.
If you want to learn about it more, come talk to me! If you don't, do us both a favor and block me.
On this blog, “female” and female assignment refers to the patriarchy's idea of gender that determines that women should be defined by immutability, sexual subjugation and essential biological traits. Trans women too suffer under this assignment. Here, “female” does not refer to biological sex or gender identity. “Female” and woman are two different things.
My essay delves into this further.
I am several times more assertive of my identity and positionality than I used to be. Unless you have meaningful critique of my analysis, don't bother engaging with me. I've heard what you want to say before and I don't care to hear it again.
I'm open to honest conversation and discussion over my theory though I expect a basic understanding of marginalization dynamics on your part.
White people, that means stop making false race comparisons.
I won't tolerate transphobia (associating me with my assigned sex ie. calling me “an AFAB”) or purposeful misrepresentation of my posts or beliefs. If you treat me as “less trans” than other trans women or try to tell me I don't deserve a voice in transfeminine spaces then I will probably tear into you and/or call you pathetic.
TwERFS, transphobes, bigots, fascists/right wing, trans/misogynists, racists and serial harassers go fuck yourselves.
My posts of personal experience are based on my own struggles as a perpetual victim of transmisogynoir, I share them partly because this site needs more black transfeminized narratives and partly to illustrate how someone like me exists as a trans woman.
For more information, see my Bluesky, Substack, or Medium.
Black Native Transfeminist
Author of assignment theory
she/her 🏳️⚧️ @oddtransfem on Tumblr
As a dedicated transfeminist, I write in the context of political analyses relating to how gender is assigned and different subjects within
Read writing from Mera on Medium. As a dedicated transfeminist, I write in the context of political analyses relating to how gender is assig
Block #transmisogyny tw #transmisogyny cw # transphobia tw & #transphobia cw if discrimination against transgender people triggers you.
Check my featured tags in the search for more!
FAQ
Is this an AFAB transfem blog?
This blog doesn't especially focus on transfems assigned female at birth, it's not a mogai blog or a contradictory label blog. This is a politics blog.
It is mostly about transfeminized people in general. That includes transgender people who weren't assigned male at birth yet have feminine gender identities that fundamentally don't align with their assignments and that defy patriarchal gender norms. I consider them under the transfeminine umbrella.
Do you support AFAB transfems?
In large part yes, I've come to a lot of different conclusions having surrounded myself with the community and in short I can say that I do. If you strongly oppose that I frankly don't care and would like you to consider that your perception of them — like mine was — is based on your assumptions rather than any real source. That's not a good way to build your perception of a minority.
And frankly I don't trust you if vocally obsess over them.
I don't personally appreciate the fact that there is such an emphasis on “AFAB” as part of the label and think that is a large part of why so many transmisogynists identify themselves that way but I understand there isn't much of another common way to communicate the same concept currently. This is why I coined “assignment variant”.
Are you an AFAB transfem?
Even though technically I was assigned female at birth and am transfeminine, please do not call me “AFAB”. Referring to me as “an AFAB” associates me with my assignment which upsets me as it would any other trans person. I would never describe another trans woman as “an AMAB” so don't do that to me. Neither AFAB nor AMAB is a social category or identity, it is a description of the coercive designation society assigns infants at birth that determines what they're supposed be.
I am a trans woman because I am trans in relation to my gender assignment — of which I do not identify — and utterly and entirely a woman.
Are you TME or TMA?
Considering that I am literally a trans woman who's womanhood is subject to being revoked or used against me at any moment, as well as my being frequently targeted and affected by transmisogyny it would be mistaken to consider me TME. This acknowledges my material reality and lived experiences that, regardless of your opinion, directly tie into my oppression.
I have lived with the internal experience of being trans ever since I was born and an external one for years now; excluding transmisogyny from an assessment of my marginalization leaves out crucial factors that contribute to my social position.
Transfeminism?
I am a very avid transfeminist. My theory, my accounts, my blog are all based around it. I have done a lot of reading and a lot of living which has influenced my own analysis. Do not assume that because of my assignment I am somehow naïve around topics within transfeminism. I have intricate knowledge of gender assignment and the functions of marginalization especially.
Don't bother to engage with me if you can't explain to me how marginalization as a whole generally works.
you could at least use the term "tme transfem". because imo that's the thing everyone has a problem with. call yourself what you want, people being cops about it are kind of annoying me as a tma transfem, but don't claim oppression that you do not experience.
TME transfems do not exist. As racism-exempt poc and misogyny-exempt women do not either. I am not doing a "you can be whatever you want forever" I am materially transfeminine.
If I'm honest, I don't really care to listen to you especially when your understanding of marginalization is so poor you argue that a minority can be completely removed from their experience of systemic marginalization.
You could have taken the time to read the arguments all over my page — in my pinned even — but you chose not to.
You chose not to hear how I am targeted in cis black spaces as well as trans white spaces. You chose not to examine how well read or how much I actually understand transmisogyny. You chose not to look at my concept of transfeminization from my perspective. You chose not to listen to how a black woman tied her understanding of misogynoir and intersectional politics to transfeminism — theory which is severely lacking in black voices despite claiming to uplift the most marginalized members of our community.
Popular transfeminist accounts have followed me just for the things I've said and blocked me solely because of who I am. That should tell you something. It is not politics, you people have a problem with me as a human being.
You are only as good as what you do. Willful ignorance is a fatal flaw in political discussion.
It's so interesting to read works such as those by Julia Serano and see parts that look a lot like what I discuss in my theory. I see the same from the transmasculine essays I'm seeing now too.
I hear Julia saying how obviously being forced in the male category for much of her life was violent and traumatic but also that being forced into a female category upon appearing as a cis woman to the world was also violent. I read about how a trans man discusses how no man actually achieves manhood, they simply spend their entire lives trying to fulfill it.
This is exactly what I mean by assigned male and femaleness. How they're not just present from birth but also inflicted as someone grows in excessive ways. Trans people are assigned both to varying degrees and are therefore determined neither.
I mean of cours you were assigned female at birth! I rarely see amab transfems being so accepting toward of afab transfems
So this is weird. I'm not different in essence from other trans women regardless of what I was assigned at birth. We are all women who transgress both gender assignments. I come to the conclusions I do partly because of my own experience and partly because of the theory I read, the theory of other trans women.
This is not an “amab” vs. “afab” trans woman blog. I am not an “afab trans woman”, other trans women are not “amab trans women” and associating me with my birth assignment makes me uncomfortable. We're trans, we're not our AGAB. That's kind of the point.
I'd just like to let people know, especially people who've been in my asks, that I haven't been the target of transmisogyny now just because I assert myself as a trans woman. In fact I don't, in real life I rarely if ever bring it up, the only references to it are a trans flag in my Instagram bio and a she/her pin over a trans flag on my bag.
Not everyone sees these things when meeting me, a lot of people think I'm a cis woman at first glance. That isn't particularly weird for trans women and it doesn't stop us from being targeted by or internalizing transmisogyny. It doesn't stop us being afraid in public or scared to use the washroom or okay when we see our sisters murdered or killed or alright when people project transmisogyny onto us when they find out.
I'm really not that different. If you met me in real life, at first you might assume I'm a cis girl, then you might find out I'm a trans woman and assume I'm like any other. Having a conversation with me you would never be able to tell that I was assigned differently and I never lie to the girls that I know. I exist in transfeminine spaces and that makes me happy.
I am a woman who doesn't identify with her assigned gender. I am medically transitioning to affirm my identity, I have been experiencing dysphoria since I knew what gender was. My body looks physically different to others as a result of my transition, I can never go back. It does not define my transfemininity though my intimate experiences with people are impacted by the fact I have a penis. Everyday different thoughts intrude into my mind about my body that make me feel like I'm too much of the wrong gender. I'm trans, I'm a woman, I'm transfeminine and also transfeminized. Those are immutable facts about myself that I cannot change whether I say I am or not.
I am not an AFAB trans woman. I am not AFAB. I am a trans woman who's assignment is unlike those with that same label.
If afab trans women exist, so do amab cis women, right ? What would make someone an ''amab cis woman'' ?
I've thought about this! And I honestly doubt they don't exist, there may be many intersex cis women assigned male at birth.
Honestly my presumption is that those women identify their womanhood with their assignment, which they receive, just not at birth. As I've said, many people especially women from what I've seen are assigned both femaleness and maleness. Some are assigned more of one than another woman is. Maybe a woman assigned male at birth does not consider her womanhood trans because it's associated with femaleness she was assigned in excess. That might be because she's intersex, because she was reassigned or for any other reason.
There's another conversation to be about how that woman is impacted by transmisogyny. You could still consider her transfeminized, there are many transfeminized people who do not identify with the term transfeminine. That's what the word is for. Unfortunately, in a lot of cases an identity can't exempt you from certain forces but you may internalize it differently. An AMAB cis woman might not consider herself especially emotionally affected by transmisogyny because she identifies with her assignment even if she's targeted by it. Marginalization affects people in so many complex ways, dynamics between identity, perception, personal history and community violence.
We're talking about complicated topics here but I assure you there's nothing I haven't considered.
