#ex libfem

[sighingtirf]

Gender theory is just a huge mess of

-People suffering from the effects of oppression (and generally horrible direct trauma as a result of that oppression), who think the best way to deal with it is to dissociate from it and see anyone who speaks about the reality of their oppression as the enemy

-People suffering from the effects of oppression and have heavy internalized sexism or homophobia

-People who are privileged in certain aspects and benefit from the constant gaslighting that is Gender Theory, but usually don’t think of themselves as benefiting because they’re so entitled that they think it was owed to them all along

-People who are either privileged in certain aspects or have differing experiences from another group, who just go along with the sexism / homophobia / transphobia / whatever else because to them, they see nothing wrong

[sighingtirf]

Well I’m back

Anyone know how to heal from ongoing sexism trauma? I’m tired of feeling like this whenever libfem sexism comes up in my day to day life. The helplessness, the anger and racing thoughts that last all week, the feeling that nobody cares, the guilt, the isolation, the bargaining. I’m so tired of it.

I don’t know if anyone’s going to see this since I’ve been off my blog for so long, but I wanted to reach out to my sisters. How do you take care of yourselves? I can blacklist words on my tumblr all day long, but I can’t block it from irl spaces. I’m tired of this pain and trauma taking up so much of my time and mental health. 

Fighting every battle isn’t helpful to me. Arguing in my head for hours isn’t helpful to me. I want to be able to see it, acknowledge it, and then let it go when it comes up, not have it send me into a spiral.

How can we heal from this?

[sighingtirf]

I’m not sure how coherent this post will end up being, but I’ve been thinking about the fact that, like...

There’s two points I’ve been thinking about actually, not entirely related but I may as well put them in the same post

1.) I wonder how many (I hate this word, but anyways) feminine trans men and trans masc people would be gnc if the trans movement weren’t the way it is.

Disidentifying from womanhood, it feels safer to adhere to standards of femininity, because you see yourself as a man (or otherwise “non-woman”) being feminine, which puts an emotional distance between you and the trauma of femininity. But there’s still the ever-present need to adhere to these standards, because of all the messages aimed at you from birth. You don’t get a chance to heal or fight back or even recognize what’s going on--just a safe emotional distance, a bandage over the wound.

Also, as a butch woman, I’ve always had a burning desire to give a big Fuck You to social norms. I and many other butch women are detransitioned, having been fed misinformation and pressured into identifying as trans men. Knowing that lesbians, especially butch lesbians, are disproportionately negatively affected and pressured by this movement, I wonder how many of these feminine trans men are giving the big old Fuck You to social norms the best way they know how.

In the Queer Community, there’s also the stigma against presenting in a masculine way (unless you’re a trans woman or dmab non-binary person). Hell, the more you present (or Identify) as masculine, the more your experiences are denied, the more you’re excluded and demonized and harassed, the more people tell you to Shut Up about your own oppression.

2.) The absolute fury I’ve seen from some trans men / trans masc people towards “TERFs”, as well as the now very widespread attitude of “we have male privilege, we have to work extra hard to silence ourselves and each other, listen only to trans women, and shut down TERFs”--it occurred to me that this reminds me of butch culture. Not the actions and beliefs themselves, but the role of being guardians and protectors--which is what they feel like they’re doing / being when they say these things and act this way. Again, considering how much the movement targets butches...this thought makes me really sad, knowing how everything about us has been turned against us without us even being able to realize it.

[sighingtirf]

It’s honestly really sad how the left talks about female (”DFAB”) people like...?

(For the sake of any trans people who may be reading this, I’ll use the term DFAB for this post, but please read the post I linked to if you want to know why I no longer like using that term)

They look at lesbians, DFAB people who are only attracted to other DFAB people, and call us all the usual names--predatory, fetishizing, etc--but also, “So then, you see women as nothing but walking vaginas!”

They say the same type of thing about radical feminists; DFAB people fighting for the liberation of DFAB people, in a movement created for and by DFAB people because of the oppression we face because of our bodies.

All our lives we’ve been violated in every way because of our bodies, we’re reduced to our genitals and sexualized, we’re censored and treated like objects and abused for our biological sex.

Of course anti-feminists will use that against us.

It’s relieving to be among people who pretend that biological sex doesn’t exist, who pretend that, simply by disidentifying with being a woman, you can remove all the violation that comes with being born female.

It’s no wonder that even DFAB people will turn viciously against feminists, because feminists acknowledge the reality of misogyny. And the reality of misogyny is beyond, beyond sickening and horrifying.

[sighingtirf]

Something a lot of radfems don’t seem to understand--

Many people involved in trans activism don’t consciously think of “gender = gender roles”.

I’ll use myself as an example.

If I’d looked much into radfem blogs and seen radical feminists say that we believe being a woman is “putting on eyeliner and wearing a dress” or anything along those lines, I would have snorted and thought damn, these people really don’t understand anything about what being transgender is.

Here’s how I viewed “women / woman-aligned people” having a tendency to feminize and use examples such as “I was always into [insert stereotypically feminine thing] as a kid”:

-Internalizing gender role stereotypes, and being drawn to them because “I’m a girl, and this is a way of asserting that”

-Having to feminize in order to survive a world where femininity is forced so heavily on women

I see plenty of trans-identified people breaking gender stereotypes, and stereotypically feminine trans men would receive backlash from transmedicalists, while stereotypically masculine trans women would receive backlash from radfems. Non-binary people would get slammed for being “a completely gender-conforming woman/man”.

Meanwhile, if a trans person adhered to gender stereotypes--non-binary people trying to look as androgynous as possible or switching their presentation daily, trans women trying to adhere to femininity standards, trans men trying to pass as men by adhering to masculinity standards--radfems would get on them for associating gender to gender roles.

There really was no winning.

Nowadays, I have noticed plenty of MOGAI circles associating gender roles / masculinity / femininity / etc. to gender. 

And I recognize that many trans activists or trans-identified people who don’t consciously associate gender roles to gender--are inevitably effected by subconscious reasoning; my view on “gendered feelings” now is that they’re a set of feelings caused by socialization and imposed gender roles, and a gendered feeling someone has is often removed from the performance of femininity or masculinity (this is a post for another day, but for a quick example, trans men wanting to escape the feeling of sex-based oppression while still feeling a need to perform femininity, but internally having a safe feeling of distance from the reality of how they’re seen and treated).

Throwing this out there as something to think about.

[unpopularfrustratedfeminist-blog]

Ex-Libfem confession

I’ve had to ask a guy to get out of the women’s bathroom before because it was creeping me out. I mentioned this and got told “How did you know they weren’t a pre-everything trans woman or NB AMAB queer!!” by my friends.

idk I was pretty preoccupied with trying to feel safe changing my tampon with this beardy huge dude standing in the corner not doing anything in particular. Just saying.