Being a trans man (I will write this from my perspective as a relatively binary perisex trans man. Of you can relate to this, no matter what your gender or your history with your gender is, feel free to do so) in a trans community that is not respectful very quickly boils down to: "be nice, be quiet, shut up". "You are turning into the oppressor, be humble about it. Don't talk about your issues, it could be so much worse. Actually, you don't have issues. How dare you imply that you have issues".
And, what infuriates me most: "Be grateful for being invisible. Accept that invisibility is always a privilege". It is not. Neither Invisibility nor Hypervisibility are a privilege. Both are shitty, yes.
Also, trans men and transmascs are not invisible. The only people we are invisible to are our allies. We are seen as a risk, a danger, people who are just some doses of lifesaving treatment short of becoming misogynistic, alt-right republican voters. Or the media paints us as confused little girls. So many allies and even people from our own community don't even mention us, either we are bad "for the cause" because we're men and men are bad for the community or we are bad "for the cause" because we are a risk when making people support trans people and believe in the science. One of the most common transphobic arguments is "protect the children", "save young, delusional girls whose transition numbers are exploding". And very often, that argument is about trans men and transmascs. To not have that argument, we are thrown under the bus.
Then, there are those who don't forget us. And those are, of fucking course, the transphobes. They sure as hell don't ignore us. If I got a dollar for every time I heard someone say "protect girls from trans ideology", some shit about "Healthy breasts/wombs" or "girls that age can't know if they are trans", I'd be a rich man. For some reason, a surprisingly large number of people, even people from our community or adjacent to it do not realise that this is transphobia.
And seriously, if I hear the "trans men pass faster/ better" or the "estrogenised puberty doesn't change the body as much" (then where the fuck did I get those boobs from that I have to get cut off? Huh? Where?!)
We are erased. Erased from history, society and from our own lives. Erased from our own community. And the least thing people who want to support us could do is recognise that that erasure is extremely harmful.
