#trans*men

[nick-ii]

Dear Trans*Boys

With the trend of being a TERF on the rise, I gotta say something.

Trans*girls are the ones mainly being attacked. If you ever see us trans*boys talked over by TERFs, it’s mainly bs like how we’ve “been so strongly influenced by the patriarchy” that we don’t wanna be women anymore.

It’s undeniable that trans*girls are the ones in our community that are largely being attacked by TERFs.

Trans*boys, protect your trans*sisters.

[fivevotesdown]

I am all over this whole "support trans*women" thing like I love love love it, and I wish we could have the same attitude about trans*men of all shapes and sizes. Please, we aren't invisible.

[fivevotesdown]

Hey guys! Check out my new comic, Trans*American Expedition, at http://tapastic.com/episode/306794

Trans* Expedition is about two trans* men who are launched into a post-apocalyptic world and find their own ways to survive.

[maxmoonpie]

So

I really like trans*men. Like to the point where I’d probably call it a fetish. Is that offensive? I hope not. And I know I’ve talked before about how I feel with my gender and my gender expression, and like there’s a part of me that’s jealous of trans*men. Like I love the way guys look when they first start T and they’re slightly masculine, but still have a softness and femininity to their features. And I think I desire that for my own self. I want that small level of androgyny. But I don’t want to be a man. I’ve accepted my female body, even though I feel masculine about 40% of the time. Bodies are weird. Existence is weird.

[epochryphal]

another thought on spaces and asterisks:

the people i know who’ve identified specifically as transmen (no space) and used the orthography trans*men (asterisk to indicate optional space and include both options) — i wonder how they feel today

i feel like at the time it was kind of a non-binary thing, maybe like what demiguy is now. identifying not only/exactly(/at all?) as a man but as a transman whose gender is inherently tied to transness

and thinking about it i don’t rememer seeing it recently, or seeing trans*woman or transwoman, only ever trans*men or transmen and occasionally trans*people

and perhaps that says a lot, i’m very willing to concede that. perhaps it was a failed attempt and we’ve moved on. perhaps it was warped out of recognition and is simply no longer viable (perhaps like transgendered with the -ed?)

it just saddens me as a non-binary linguist who’s been involved in trans+ discourse for almost five years, to see the origins of words (by non-binary folks, by folks somewhat outside of transnormativity) forgotten and the words hated and reviled as never ever okay to apply to someone or yourself like why would you

i think we lose something when we forget that we coined these words for a purpose, and if they’re not working perhaps we need to find an alternative to meet that purpose, not erase it from our history

[zapkilikan]

Okay, this is a post that might earn me my first hate mail, because I may or may not inadvertently step on some toes. It's causing me a considerable level of anxiety, because I really don't mean to. I'm not interested in speaking over trans*women, perpetuating transmisogyny, nor invading women's only spaces to try to input my own viewpoint over theirs. I recognize that these are all problems that exist. I don't want to be a part of the issue.

But I keep seeing all these posts about how trans*men are all assholes, how we're all sexist and terrible and how we erase the existence of trans*women by talking about our own experiences.

And uh, maybe I'm just not seeing the posts that bring up this kind of thing. And I will admit that I'm not very active in the trans* community, partly as a result of this infighting I see all the time. But I have yet to see an actual trans*man doing any of those things.

If I'm just ignorant, please, direct me to some examples. I am doing my best to learn about all these privileges that come with my identity, and distinctly shutting up about how I feel about them because I don't want to risk sounding like I'm speaking over others. But seeing this over and over again is distinctly uncomfortable for me, and I guess this is me trying to reach out to learn more so that I can better regulate my own behavior and ingrained reactions in order to keep from being part of the problem.

I dunno, it just makes me not really want to be a part of the community at all. Not because I disagree with those who talk about these things. Not because I think I'm better. But because I'm terrified with the fear of making a mistake and being called out as perpetuating transmisogyny. But I think it's starting to be detrimental to my own identity that I feel that way, because I feel guilty for even identifying as a trans*man. Like I'm somehow exhibiting that I support the patriarchy simply by identifying as a male. And I don't.