Saying being AFAB isn’t an oppressed category on its own is equivalent to saying being AFAB isn’t an oppressed category unless you are a woman. This ignorance and erasure exemplifies the height of the privilege afforded to people AMAB.
I can’t believe i have to say this to women in the year of our lord 2026, but: AFAB is a social position created *by the oppressor* to subjugate birthing bodies, full stop. Where this becomes TERF nonsense is at the point where someone says ‘therefore trans women are not affected’. That leap of logic is the insane TERF nonsense, NOT the fact that birthing bodies are the target of control. You do not need to be the center focus in order to experience the full brunt of oppression, omg. SEXIST OPPRESSION IS NOT GENDER AFFIRMATION, HOLY SHIT WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU.
And yeah duh it is a bioessentialist category, it is a tool of bioessentialist oppression. Just as with racism, the bioessentialism behind the categorization doesn’t mean the oppression is not real, and blaming those discussing how they are affected by it for ‘perpetuating bioessentialism’ is victim-blaming of the caliber of white people who say ‘i’m colorblind, yall are always making it about race’. Yall need to sit with why you need people AFAB to shut up about the oppression we experience along this vector in order to feel yours is valid.
Behold:
Do Black people need to shut up about anti-Black racism in order for antisemitic racism to be valid? No. Is it racist to insist on centering antisemitic racism that affects specifically white Jewish people in every conversation about anti-Black racism? Yes. Does this make it ok for Black spaces to be antisemitic? No.
Similarly:
Do people AFAB need to shut up about the sexism we experience along this vector in order for transmisogyny to be valid? No. Is it sexist to insist on centering sexism that affects specifically people AMAB in every conversation about sexism against people AFAB? YES. Does this make it ok for women’s spaces to exclude trans women? No.
Consider: If I am socially positioned as a white jewish woman, does my experience of antisemitic racism mean my position is entirely equivalent to that of a Black man? Or even more so, considering he is a Man and i am a Woman? Can I assume he is my oppressor then? Can i assume I do not represent the same danger to him, do not hold the same power over him, that any white woman would? Don’t be ridiculous. Social positioning MATTERS and you are responsible for knowing yours, not dictating to other marginalized people what their own reality is.
And yes, the criticism that this is almost exclusively a white trans women problem is real, not a cover for transmisogyny. Here’s why: Trans people’s illiteracy in regards to what liberationist terms like ‘privilege’ and ‘positionality’ mean is making our communities anti-intersectional. We are being hijacked as incubators and proliferators of profoundly anti-intersectional (and even straight up racist) ways of thinking like ‘oppression is a function of internal identity more than externally enforced positioning’ and ‘experiencing hardship means i couldn’t possibly occupy a position of privilege’ and ‘experiencing occasional forms of a specific type of oppression is entirely equivalent to occupying that social position’ and ‘being called out means i’m being attacked and the other party is being divisive’. These are not clever, original clapbacks, they’re just ‘confidently incorrect’ frameworks imported from MRAs and racists. Quiiiiit.
TLDR: “Being AFAB is not an oppressed category, yall are being bioessentialist for acting like it affects anything” is the “i’m colorblind, why do you people always make everything about race” for the trans community.
ETA: Bonus points for anyone who ‘refutes’ this post after clearly not having read a single word past the first five sentences, as though ‘I’m going to tell this trans man what he means instead of actually reading the words he took the time to articulate, because it’s a totally foreign concept to me to imagine trans men have like, thoughts and ideas that could be original or of any value’ is not the most classic manifestation of sexism/transmisandry and totally proving my point
ETA2: okay so nobody ever reblogs my stuff and especially not this early on, so it feels right to say it’s my habit to tweak the stuff i write here and there for the first few hours, because usually these essays end up just being for me. So i might make some changes at first like “probably it’s clearer to say ‘antisemitic racism’ here instead of just antisemitism because i am specifically comparing the racial component of this sort of bigotry” and stuff like that, so please don’t see it as me being weird, it’s more just sort of me having too much attention to detail and not being A Professional 😬
