#shitcourse

[sysmedsaresexist]

Reminder, taking a sentence and using a thesaurus to change the words but not the structure, meaning, intent, or the rest of the paragraph...

That's plagiarism and by like grade 6 you should know better

[transandroblog]

"Antitransmasculinity is supposed to be used to understand transmisogyny better" I 100% agree that the experiences of trans mascs can help trans fems understand theirs and vice versa.

But this is starting to get exhausting

There's a paper I like that analyzed truscum tucute discourse on Tumblr [open access]. It mentioned that over time transmeds altered their views of what dysphoria is over time, often ending up more aligned with tucutes, to continue being right.

The "continue being right" part makes it sound like cognitive dissonance when I feel that learning and making adjustments to your views is what actually happened. At least for the audience of the posters. The posters and the people who are open and active? Yeah, definitely more likely just trying to seem like they're still right.

We went from trans mascs can't experience misogyny, to yes they experience misogyny but its no different to women when they do, to okay I guess it is different but that + problems trans mascs have with masculinity (if acknowledged at all) are mainly important because they can potentially impact trans women [they automatically impact trans women and fems imo].

I can't read "Antitransmasculinity is a Trojan horse" and think the people saying that give a single fuck about how our experiences effect us. It's like saying biphobia is mainly important to understand homophobia. Yeah, its important for doing that, but I don't know, maybe don't act like the people who are mainly impacted are cannon fodder? How can you say we're canaries in a coal mine while denying we're hurt by the gas?

[transandroblog]

It's not that it doesn't matter its that you can't generalize it like we do cis people.

A study going through wage differences in the 2015 trans survey found something kind of obvious:

These income results are sensitive to the degree to which respondents have socially transitioned. The younger transgender people transition and the greater their ability to ‘pass’, the more their income profiles reflect that of their gender identity rather than the sex they were assigned at birth.

The first page of the methodology in the survey op is linking to points to something pretty important:

The respondent pool is not fully representative of the “entire LGBTQ community.” Instead, readers of this report should view results as a market study on LGBTQ community members who interact with LGBTQ media and organizations. Results do not reflect community members who are more closeted or do not interact much with LGBTQ community organizations.

It literally says to not generalize this to all of the community and a specific subset.

[transandroblog]

The only way to get critique for it is to post it! Fuck!

Disclaimer: I am not saying this because I am sure of its accuracy. I am doing it to get input. I cannot even start to be sure of something about someone by just looking through a window. Do Not Take it as Fact.

Through about 2015-2018 I was a transmedicalist. I didn't openly identify that way and I didn't harass anyone, at most I'd share their blogs for tips to deal with dysphoria. I also believed that nonbinary people existed. This is a disclaimer (2) for anyone who thinks I'm unforgivable.

The reason why I start with that at all is because I think why I believed in transmedicalism is similar to why some trans women believe in Tumblr Transfeminism.*

One of the reasons I turned to transmedicalism is because I needed something to justify I was trans to myself. That I was allowed to be trans.

I feel like that's possibly a reason why trans women are turning to Tumblr Transfeminism. Only they need to justify their trans womanhood specifically. That transness doesn't take away from their womanhood. That being a trans woman isn't wrong, if anything its a good thing.

Both of those things are true, the issue comes in when they're based on "because women aren't oppressors" and use oppositional sexism against trans men and mascs. Its true until womanhood is justified with transnormativity and hegemonic femininity. The issue comes in when oppositional sexism requires a gender binary that doesn't exist.

Being a trans woman is a good thing because you are living your life happier. Its a good thing for the wisdom you're able to share as one. Its a good thing because you are being you despite the world telling you otherwise. Its good because being a woman is whatever you want it to be. I see my life as a part of manhood, that manhood needs to expand with me rather than me shrinking to fit into it. It's the same for trans women and womanhood, its yours.

We expect important resources and information to be available to the "typical" trans person but they're not. It was hard for me to find ways to manage my dysphoria without access to HRT. Its hard to find transfeminist writing and theory that isn't about fucking TERFs or other transphobes. I'm speaking from experience with that one too, transfeminism is usually on the defensive rather than the offensive. It sucks.

If there's a large community with both of those things, it can be what makes you hang in there. For me it was my solid ground to stand on. Going back to the justifying trans womanhood, forcefem is a way to not blame yourself for being trans. Its out of your control. If that's your mainline then you don't have much concern over other people when you can barely keep your head above water. Anyone telling you otherwise is essentially asking you to drown, of course you're going to write them off. I know I fucking did.

So if any trans women are reading this and it feels accurate, I know my little preaching ramble earlier won't do much. The internal fight doesn't come from nowhere. Saying those things to yourself won't automatically make you believe it. I don't blame you for trying to hang in there, do what you can. I'd only ask to not share any hateful stuff that comes with it.

If you're a trans woman and have left the Tumblr Transfeminist sphere I'd frankly appreciate your input the most. Any other trans woman or trans fem regardless of stance I'd like input from too. I used trans woman through most of this because what got me thinking was the push of nonbinary people into another binary based on AGAB (transfem/transmasc). I'd still appreciate transfem input on this.

...

*I use Tumblr Transfeminism because actual transfeminist theory has always included all trans, nonbinary and intersex people.

[transandroblog]

I think a lot of friction towards transandrophobia comes from two different ideas of what intersectionality is. And usually when a lot of people in this don't have any sort of formal education its hard to pin down this issue.

One of the biggest arguments against it is that it ignores intersectionality. The ones who argue this see intersectionality as only applicable in understanding multiple marginalized identities. I've had it described as being in different intersections of a road, where the more you're in, the more likely you're to get hit by a car. Which is honestly one of the most American ways to describe something.

And this is one way of understanding it. I personally believe its a surface level way, but I'm not the authority of what intersectionality is.

Intersectionality to me means to understand multiple identities and how they come together to create a diverse range of experiences. I've described it before as mixing paint to create a new color. This is how transmisogyny is distinct from transphobia and misogyny and exists as its own thing. Its why transmisogyny doesn't only pay attention to the cisnormative ideas of misogyny and isn't afraid to push ideas such as reproductive organs being morally neutral and not inherently oppressive.

That understanding, the one that focuses more on the ways identities are interconnected into one distinct paint color, means that positions of privilege matter in that mix. If they don't then you're left back at pre intersectionality understanding where marginalized identities and axis of oppression aren't connected with one another.

You're back to trying to unlink identities from each other. This is how we get to trans men being told we're getting shit for being trans and not men when we see those two things as inseparable from each other.

Then we can go to how intersectionality is about systems rather than identities. This is how we get to misandry not being a system of oppression being used as a critique. To be blunt, this overlooks patriarchy as a system. A system that feminist scholars have pointed out as harming women more than men, but still harming men as well. Including Serano when discussing oppositional sexism and in her latest book Sexed Up. The Will to Change by bell hooks also discusses this in detail.

Transandrophobia doesn't claim that men are oppressed by women, that feminism harms men, if anything it shows that patriarchy oppresses all of us. Plus since the original theory a lot of people have added misogyny as an interlocking factor within it.

And what's frustrating is that the little feminist literature and discussion that exists on how patriarchy harms men includes lamenting on how little its talked about within feminism. I read it and come to find that a movement that pushes to address that is automatically taken as a MRA movement that believes feminism is the problem. And because coming up with theory and describing it alongside decades of feminist theory is hard, all that can be done is point out how it differs from MRAs at most instead of pointing to the connections it makes with other theory. Which leaves everyone feeling like somethings wrong without being able to put their finger on it.

Ultimately its why I feel like asking others to understand transandrophobia is like asking to move a joint in a new way, it's different and feels weird. Its not an approach that's normally taken, and I think that makes a lot of people look for a reason to dismiss it. But I am frankly tired of intersectionality being used to say this term isn't valid when its followed by statements that are blatantly against intersectionality (dissecting experiences and identities). I could be wrong about my understanding of a lot of things in here, but the whole creation of something new out of inseparable systems is a main component in intersectionality.

Off tangent I wrote for an example of intersectionality based on my own experiences below the cut. I realized it got too off topic in the main post but already wrote it out so :/

It stifles us from better understanding other intersectional experiences as well. For instance I am a psychiatric survivor. My gender dysphoria and inability to understand that it was gender dysphoria, due to the lack of visibility of trans people, made it so I was treated for things that weren't the underlying issue of my distress. As I got worse it was assumed I wasn't trying to get better or hiding something from mental health professionals. I didn't fully understand what was wrong because I had little to no information why I felt so wrong. What I said kept getting discounted as the mental illness talking as I got worse.

Today I see having prior mental health issues used to dismiss the fact that a person is trans and instead its just the mental illness talking. We as trans people say its fucked up, but rarely put into detail how torturous this becomes. It would have to bring up how the mentally ill are treated by mental health professionals when they become Too Much.

Would I have experienced one without the other? Probably not. I can't meaningfully separate that experience into transphobia and sanism. I gave a rundown, but going into depth its not possible to see where one ends and another begins. I cannot say its one without the other.

Asking me to do that doesn't do much besides water down my experience, one that was traumatizing to me. For what? To get philosophical about it? To remove me from my scars? That's not something you do when you actually care about the pain others have gone through, its what you do when you see them as research subjects. And I refuse to believe intersectionality is meant to be that.

[transandroblog]

The idea that trans men and mascs are "upset about being denied male privilege" comes across as a weird way of saying "upset about being oppressed"

One Tumblr post mentioned that there's two types of privilege:

Having an unearned advantage over others. For instance: A mediocre White person getting a job that a person of color needs to be overqualified for to get.

Having something everyone else should have, human rights. For instance the ability to afford what you need and live comfortably. Not having to deal with prejudice and discrimination.

And while being angry you're denied privilege as a man is the case where marginalized men expect to get away with assaulting women, expecting to get a job that a woman qualifies more for, hell being seen as the patriarch and "man of the house," dealing with misogyny and being implicitly misgendered both when it happens and when seeking support is a bare minimum "everyone should have this" privilege. Its the privilege that you wouldn't give up to have equality because the goal should be for everyone to have these things.

Its like telling me that I'm angry I don't have abled privilege when I struggle to find accommodating work. It obscures the harm and makes it seem like I want to be able to hold power over others when what I want is equity.

If a trans man or masc was upset that they don't have power to hold over others, that would 100% be anger about the denial of male privilege. Thing is that isn't the context I see the wording of "denied privilege" come in. Instead it comes in when there's anger about transphobia and misogyny.

It frankly comes off like calling us entitled brats.

Also, I don't think this is a conscious choice when using that wording, but this is close to echoing terf shit. It assumes that our goal in transition and being seen as our identified gender is to gain privilege. I don't know why else it'd be assumed we're upset over not obtaining privilege instead of being upset about mistreatment.

[transandroblog]

Earlier on when transandrophobia was newer as a concept I realized I had to start unfollowing a lot of people. One of them was someone who promoted feminism while citing back to feminist theory and writing, so I really appreciated their blog up until what I'm about to share.

There were a posts on their blog that disapproved of transandrophobia as a theory. I didn't want to just unfollow the person I thought had otherwise good content, but also didn't want to randomly keep seeing dismissive stuff on my dash. I thought that I might as well share why it was helpful for me over pm. Not to fully convince them but at least get them to consider why it was being talked about.

Heres what I wrote:

Hey so, since the transandrophobia discourse started, I felt like a lot of the bosts you rebloged about i were backhanded in a way Like, comparing it to being an MRA. That and the whole asking why it even needs to be it's own thing. l'm mainy sending this to explain why it grew on me as it's own thing.

I guess I want to ask, if you don't see us as often what do you leave tha to? How do you explain it to yourself? Because in my personal experience, trans men and mascs try to engage with feminism before being misgendered or unsupported. Like, two tried to speak at an event about rape at my college before being completely erased as women in general by the next speaker.

l've been told that making pregnancy gender neutral takes away from women by the professor teaching feminist and queer theory, in response to me bringing up trans men in Roe v Wade being overturned.

Intersectionality is meant to talk about how identities intersect to create unique experiences. Only using it to stack oppressions on top of each other takes away fron what intersectionality offers. It's specifically good for not taking the experiences of others for granted and listening to them.

A lot of transandrophobia crosses and shares similarities with transmisogyny, but it's the one term I'm able to use to even search for experiences like mine because transmasc invisibility. The act that "people treat trans people as the gender that's nost convenient for them/treats trans people worse" is often neglected when it comes to trans men, and ironically is what's used to ignore us (men in feminism who don't deserve a space or misgendered and erased/Women in bodily autonomy but men in reproductive ights. Women in mlm relationships, men in mlw, and vice versa.) Like, our transness inherently impacts our gender identity, but that's never acknowledged. I never see theory come from trans men, and unironically have read from someone that it's because we just have nothing to give. I'm told that our invisibility is a privilege because it means we're able to blend in.

And it hurts that I ended up unfollowing so many people because they would treat those things as a joke when this discourse started. I'm able to find more support as a man from gay men than I am from the trans community or feminists. Especially concerning my body and actually being positive about it and not neutral or tolerant of it.

Like, I guess I'm trying to say that the divide was already there, and that what's come of transandrophobia helped me feel like I wasn't invisible in my own community. And that one post that compared it to an mra movement just had me sit there like "okay tell me why you think that" but only get "trust me it's the same" without anything besides the fact that we're men. I'm open minded and do feel like I get a lot of privilege as a man, but to talk about anything is to be told "you're not special" or "people have it worse" which yeah, most of the time that's true, but it doesn't make my issue go away.

I stay following you since you don't actively make fun of trans men. But occasionally getting a post on my dash saying "you're not special' when a lot of us turn to transandrophobia to even get heard still sucks.

| know this is long but I feel ike it was worth saying. Sorry if it's weird or too out of the blue.

Instead of replying over pm they made a vaguepost about what I wrote. This is what it said:

I sometimes hear from tme trans people that they worry that if they complained about transphobia they experience, or asked for support, or discussed bodily insecurities. etc. In general trans spaces (meaning spaces which include tma trans people) that they would be shut down, derailed, or told that their circumstances and fears don't matter.

there seems to be this notion that acknowledging transmisogyny that acknowledqing that we have privileges that come from not being subiected to structural transmisogyny, would implicitly mean saving nothing we experience matters. that we are not oppressed as trans people. and that we don't deserve support.

by virtue of me being a dyke and mostly talking to women and dykes, I have a lot of experiences with discussing transphobia, requesting support. and discussina bodily insecurities and traumas in spaces that are inclusive of trans women and transfems. and I just have to say that if you are transmasc and you have this fear, it's not an accurate one. these spaces are the most supportive and empathetic ones I've found.

and I don't think that we (tme trans people) can even understand our own experiences and oppression fully if we neglect to understand how they are impacted by structural transmisogyny. like my post discussing mv critique of the 'nonbinarv is treated as woman-lite' phrasing-- understanding transmisoqvny enables me to better comprehend why so many spaces that are nominally "inclusive" of nonbinary people will coercively enforce cisnormativitv and often literally attempt to force tme nonbinary people back into the closet.

I think being transmasc and only opening up with your vulnerabilities and insecurities and traumas around other transmascs can foster transmisogyny that really hurts transfems in our community. and it also further isolates you and distorts your understandings of now transphobia operates. if you are constantly atraid of being shut down by transfems, I really do hope you take some time to process the defensiveness that jumps up when you read this, and sit with your biases which are leading you to assume trans women & transfems are somehow threatening to you

They took what I said and literally made it to be about trans women and trans fems in trans only groups. They saw what I wrote and thought twisting it to make it so I was afraid of trans women would make a good post, so they did.

I don't have access to trans only groups, I live in a rural area. The examples I gave in groups were specifically feminist groups. I should have specified that by women I meant cis women, because they were the ones giving me grief. The fucking Roe V. Wade example? A trans woman was giving the presentation apologized and agreed with me, the cis professor stepped in to say that making language gender neutral erases women. I wish I was making this up.

My issues were/are mainly with cis feminists. When I said trans community I meant media, that I struggle to find anything in media, because that's all I reliably have access to. Not everyone lives in the fucking city. I've never been in a trans specific group, at most I've been in queer specific groups.

And I couldn't say any of that because I either used the blog I have with a decent following and start drama/harassment or my main and just get harassed. I still don't want to start drama. I'm only sharing this because I think enough time has passed since most people likely saw the post. Anyone who tries to point out who this user is will get blocked. If you reblog it with a guess on who the user is you'll also get blocked.

Why I am sharing is both to finally let more people know besides one friend. Honestly I can also say that making this about trans women and fems will make them feel targeted and disliked for no reason.

There was one response in the notes of this vaguepost that made me want to scream:

It feels like a lot of tme trans people are perceiving a reality that does not exist and wholly projecting the blame onto trans fems. If anyone is making them feel silenced it's cis people.

Like yes! That's what I said! That's what I was talking about! It's cis people! All of my shitty irl experiences here have been with cis people!

...

Its silly, but this hurt me pretty badly. Not only because I shared important experiences only to be erased, but because I cope with conflict by immediately trying to resolve the conflict. I felt like I was forcing my mouth shut for days.

So I'm opening my yap now. Again, try to identify this person and I'm blocking you on sight.

[transandroblog]

The idea that trans mascs simply want a special word comes off to me as thinly veiled transphobia tbh. It was a common experience for me to be told that I just want to be special and that's why I ID as trans.

I doubt it'd be as common of a claim if trans people weren't already labeled as attention seeking, entitled, and people trying to play victim.

Same with shit like "birthday boy," you're reusing transphobic stereotypes.