I'm FTM and have been looking at radfem stuff for a while. I'm currently separating myself from the trans community due to the harm being done by transfems towards transmascs and women in general.
I keep looking at transfem and transfeminist tags daily, and find that their misogyny is only becoming more prominent, more open, and more supported.
Not only that, but their protection of abusers and predators is becoming a really popular talking point. Pretty much every transmasc I know has been abused or assaulted by a transfem, but they also all profess to not being able to talk about it due to community pressure.
I find that a lot of what's driving me towards radfem thought is my anger at transfems and other males. Is it bad for me to be fueled more by my anger rather than my love & compassion for women? I of course feel a lot of that as well, but my anger feels like such a dominating force in my mind. I worry that this is reactionary instead of genuine thoughtfulness and intellectual understanding of feminism.
anon, i really, really like this ask for a very personal reason, and that is because this was my very first post on this blog:
💬 0 🔁 0 ❤️ 2 · i will do my very best to articulate this:
it is very easy to claim that those of us that are kink-critical, porn-critical
it's nothing but anger, defiance, divorcing myself from a community that was supposed to be for me, without really a home to come to on my way out.
(the context of it is that what finally pushed me over the edge into re-inventing my online presence and starting to consciously, consistently interact with radical feminist online spaces was, as i've mentioned a couple of times before, the backlash and slander campaign following the Collective Shout's payment processor initiative.)
the thesis of this blog, originally, was to work out politics of sexual assault survivor unrespectability; pushing against the assimilating pressures of the queer community that expects us to meet it on its own terms. this was supposed to be a social experiment, a study, a manifesto, hopefully a chance for outreach; not at all explicitly aligned with radical feminist or dedicated to educating myself on it. this was supposed to be 90% just me yelling every single thing i hadn't been able to yell on every single horrific posts normalizing some of the worst things i could imagine, with the express purpose of talking to people like me, without them having to be feminists or even necessarily just women.
i hold that intention very dearly (and still intend to "say the things that would have helped me feel sane back in the day" whenever i am called to do so); but i also obviously do not at all regret the kind of practice this has become instead. i am, also, still very very much learning.
the best advice i believe i could give to anyone in a similar position is to find your voice and to find a space in which it can be uncompromising. don't soften it, don't moderate it, don't overburden yourself with what you owe to others at this stage. find yourself and hold onto yourself. radical feminism is for you, if you let it be. caring for yourself is exercising the exact kind of care you feel should be propelling you instead of your anger and hurt. we've been holding this in for a while, so, genuinely: let yourself react. process the reaction. don't rush anything beyond it. the right crowd, the right place, the right cause will find you from there. for now, truly, just let yourself be. the anger you feel for yourself and for other transmascs in your community is a radical and precious expression of the solidarity we all intend to foster here. i'm wishing you all of the best, and i'm here if you ever need to talk more✊🏻🫂
hi i am a transman and while i consider my beliefs to be pretty different than radfems when it comes to trans issues i do consider myself a feminist in other ways. usually i really don't like radfems for many many reasons, but the most relevant being the performative inclusion of trans men while mocking us and our bodies (and the bodies of detrans women!) i don't really know your beliefs too well as i haven't taken too much time to look at your blog but i can tell you are not nearly as hateful toward transmen as other radfems. it is genuinely admirable the patience you have with people who i'm sure you strongly disagree with but i really don't get why you don't extend that patience to mtf people*. many of my friends are transfem and we are fighting the same battles, i have a friend who i have had long conversations with about how differently we are treated when we dress feminine or are perceived as cis men, and she understands me better even than most transmen. ftm struggles and mtf struggles are really very similar, transwomen are not evil people and the radfem idea of us having vastly different reasons for transitioning is wrong. everyone transitions for different reasons but most of us just feel like this is the best way to live, nothing about a fetish or internalized homophobia
another thing i hope you will question is whether you want to use the radfem label at all. i am a feminist, i think the porn industry is evil and am against beauty standards, but i do not call myself a radfem because radical feminism has been hijacked for transphobia and most radfems are misogynistic, especially to trans people. i am sure you see how often radfems talk about trans people with such little empathy, to the point the label is associated with hating us. although there are women like you who are somewhat friendly to transmen radical feminism will never be inclusive to us and our issues, and will probably always be outright hostile. if you want to connect with transmen radical feminism is holding you back.
i know this is very long so don't feel pressured to respond at all, i just hope you reconsider since you are pretty different from most radfems. i hope you have a nice day/night :)
*by the way this is not about velvetvexations, she is annoying and i am against calling people bitches, especially women
so; i've been thinking about how to respond to this and going back and forth on how thorough i want to be with my Gender-Critical Manifesto, which ended up quite long-winded at the end. idk if you're still coming back for this one anon / if you're willing to read through All of it, but this ask is very interesting and kind of.. typical of a specific line of thinking to me, so it felt like a good opportunity to dig in and properly explain my position and experience
i also went on a bit of an emotional journey while sitting on this one, from first being excited about a chance to clear some of our cursed misunderstandings up, to now feeling a bit more disillusioned. i don't think it was your intention to sound condescending or assume things about me, but you did end up assuming things about me and i do think it is somewhat condescending to think that i do not know my own politics and therefore am not "radfemming" correctly just because of my care for transmasculine people. i also think that once i Do elaborate on my politics, you are doomed to like me much less and probably consider me deceptive or manipulative for my previous tone and statements. that is fine. i will also probably sound frustrated; i want to make it very clear i am not angry at you, and don't have a problem with you as an individual. but i am very, very frustrated and upset with the line of thinking suggested here, so this will probably slip through. ultimately, i really want to make space for every possible part of your experience without throwing women in my community under the bus and proclaiming that i am some kind of uniquely ensouled enlightened saint and an Exception To The Rule. i really hope i can succeed in that
re: my feelings towards transfems
for context, and to start with: i don't know if you know that i was part of the trans/-allied community for a very long time. the amount of time i have spent in the radfem community (~4 months) is absolutely negligible compared to 9 years in online queer spaces and roughly 8 years of nonbinary identification. i am very, very, very familiar with the trans community. that is, in part, why i find crass / cruel / dismissive / generalizing rhetoric around trans-iding individuals, especially females, so grating. i've lived a (specific, low-pressure, very internal rather than "out") version of that, and my best friend of about 8 years and civil partner, @thoughtscout , is a dysphoric woman who came out as transmasc in school. we know how it feels, why it happens, and how bad it gets.
Scout was the one to introduce me to radical feminism; i am yet to talk about that process for us at length, but rest assured, it took the better part of a year. it took tears and fights and fear. and the hardest - the hardest - thing to let go of for me, which i absolutely needed to do in order to properly engage with her sorrow, pain, intense emotional need, her desire to be understood, her desire for justice for all the ways she felt she'd been wrong by trans rhetoric and ideology - was my intense, overwhelming loyalty to transfem people.
it is not your fault for not knowing that, because you don't know me, but it's frustrating to be told i don't have enough "patience" for transfems. i've had more than just patience - i've had the burning need to respect, shield, protect, support, uphold, validate, celebrate, adore transfem people, as often as humanly possible. much more so than the transmasc people, mind you - despite the fact that all of my actual close trans-identifying friends, people i actually felt at ease with, being female. i had internalized the notion that transfems are the most vulnerable and most deserving of my love and care so fiercly that i cried, many times, when asked to even slightly challenged my firmly internalized idea of them.
i find it upsetting and frustrating that you believe that me being gender-critical, skeptical of transfems' reasons for transitioning, outraged at male patterns of misogynistic thinking and aggression within the transfem community, and prioritizing other female people in my politics and advocacy, means that i fully ideologically generalize about transfems or consider them "evil". most of the time, i do not care about them, outside of finding their very choice to transition or identify as women subliminally misogynistic and upsetting. when they are sexually or physically violent, manipulative in their aggressively anti-feminist rhetoric, stubborn in their refusal to engage with feminist theory and critique as soon as it makes them feel a bit bad or uncomfortable; whenever they are cruel, outwardly misogynistic, or abusive towards the female people within their own community, i get angry. i get incredibly, righteously angry. and i still don't think they're evil unless they are genuine, dangerous, unrepentant abusers. i think they are male people raised in a misogynistic world, people that don't want to inspect their behaviour because it's uncomfortable, taxing, and not beneficial for them. if we step away from the specifically trans context for a while - a vast majority, if not all, men are misogynistic. sometimes it makes me and other women say "men are evil". in a way, they are; in a way, they're not. they're not because they are simply people with bad politics they benefit from. in another way, they are, because they are perpetrators and enablers of unspeakable amounts of hurt. y'know?
you sent me this because of a post i have already given the context for; women in my community had gravely mishandled a personal account of a transmasc that had survived severe intimate partner abuse at the hands of a transfem. that is why my post is heavily focused on the sex-based dynamics within the trans community. i don't think transfems are the only people to ever hurt transmascs; but i am horrified at the oversaturation of violent misogyny and DARVO-like rhetoric aimed at transmascs by "transfeminists", considering that transmascs like you would indeed, more often than not, consciously seek out transfems to be in community with. there are detrans women on radblr with horror stories to tell about what was done to them when they still identified as trans men. of course we are going to be talking about transfem perpetrators of misogynistic violence against what we see an incredibly vulnerable group - not because transmascs are "naive", "infantile" or "poor helpless weak girls", but because the trans community and its rhetoric can become an isolating force. it is why we have transmascs reaching out to rad-leaning spaces and seeking to talk to other people like them, dysphoric and trans-identifying but disillusioned, to finally be able to air their grievances with the trans community at large
for further context, due to my sexual orientation and past nonbinary identity, i have had way more personal relationships with transfems than with what you would call cis men. my personal experience with sex-based interpersonal dynamics comes so much from my time within the trans community; for the longest time, relationships between "men and women" felt like it wasn't even about me at all - except of course it was. and at the end of it all, i don't violently hate men and i don't violently hate transfems; at the same time, i cannot help but empathize with women that do. there are women with traumas so much more visceral than mine. i won't ever ask them to feel differently about their oppressed state.
my current approach to any male person is one of fundamental distrust. i don't think they're ontologically evil; but, specifically with transfems, i have seen way too many "transfem supremacy kink" posts to ever feel baseline comfortable around one again until given a good reason to. you may find it an unfair generalization; for me, the "vocal minority" is representative of a mindset that can lurk undetected in any male person and, if left unexamined, lead to covert and overt misogynistic mistreatment of women like me. my (at the time transfem-identifying) ex was never Aggressively misogynistic towards me, but recontextualizing our relationship with what i have seen other transfems say about my body and my physiology did help me realize he was definitely objectifying me in ways that came extremely naturally to him, just because my body had long before been sold to him as a fantasy and a tool towards sexual gratification. his sexual conduct towards me was misleading and manipulative, and while i don't think he is an Incredibly Evil Person, i think he's full of shit and has always been full of shit and i resent the fact that his bisexuality + "gender questioning" will probably shield him from the need to examine his own mindsets and behaviours pretty much indefinitely, all while he rotates in liberal circles that claim to take "cishet" men to task. i think it's egregious and simply spitting in my face, all after i was basically tricked into entering a relationship with a guy and thinking it won't be anything like a relationship with a guy. so yes. it makes me mad. i don't have much "patience" for that i suppose
(as a side note; you've mentioned you are critical of pornography. have you seen the "b*tch with a Deathly Hallows tattoo gets DP'd by two tr*nnies, call that reparations" tweet? why does that porn video exist? why is there a demand for it? why do the same dynamics - double penetration of the female body as an act of degradation, domination and retributory violence - persist, even though the penetrators don't identify as men? why is it celebrated by the transfem porn consumer? what does it tell us about the sex- not gender- based dynamics present?)
all of this may sound like "transmisogynistic drivel" to you, but this is my honest answer as to why i treat transmascs and transfems differently. not because i think transfems are evil and transmascs can do no wrong, but because i am now painfully aware of how sex-based dynamics are perhaps complicated but never erased through transgender identification and transition. because of that, in my feminism, i center female people, and de-center men and males. i don't need to have "patience" with transfems because they are, at the end of the day, just... ultimately uninteresting to me. i will talk about what i perceive as harmful practices whenever they affect women/females, i will definitely make it part of my politics to not spread hateful propaganda or misinformation about a comparatively vulnerable group of male people, but overall, they are just not my concern. i don't think that makes me impatient towards them. i think this is just drawing a boundary of not ferevently advocating for my oppressor at the cost of not dismantling my own oppression.
regarding your friend: i am glad to hear you feel this understood by a person in your life. that is a wonderful, meaningful thing. i also do not think this has to factor into politics of sexism, sex-based oppression and female liberation. you feel kinship and solidarity with your friend based on your experiences of gendered presentation; you feel that a lot of your struggles based on gender non-conformity and trans identification overlap; i absolutely do believe that. i do not think that changes the greater societal structure of sex-based oppression, and i don't think one axis of relating and shared struggle negates all the other aspects of your experiences. lesbians and gay men can feel a great sense of solidarity, for example; a feminist lesbian woman may have a gay male best friend; they may have felt the exact same pain of rejection when being disowned by their families; they may have both suffered religious trauma, or homophobic hatecrimes; it would not, under any circumstance, make it prudent for that feminist woman to dismiss other women talking about the unique ways gay men are misogynistic and benefit from patriarchal systems of sex-based oppression, including their access to women's reproductive capacities via surrogacy, for example, just because her best friend is just a very solid guy. (to make it clear: i am not saying this just to indirectly call your friend a man for shits and giggles. i hope, if you are indeed reading this, you can see the point of the parallel)
re: radical feminism as a theory of thought and a political movement
i find it interesting that you said i might want to reconsider "labeling" myself as a radical feminist; i think treating it as a label is a complete and utter conversation killer. what do you understand about radical & second-wave feminism as theories, practices, movements, schools of thought? you might understand quite a lot, but in that case i don't know why you would treat it as a label, or think my beliefs are in some way eclectic rather than holistically developed based on the same underlying basis that radical feminism rests on
radical feminism is liberatory feminism; it concerns itself with female liberation; to work to liberate the female class, one must recognize said class as oppressed and subjugated. what is the basis of said oppression? an oppressor extracts a resource from the oppressed, and as far as said resource exists and is seen as desirable or even necessary, it will benefit the oppressor to keep the oppressed subjugated. that is why the oppressor class cannot be trusted to define the terms of the oppressed' liberation; in fact, any genuine liberatory movement will face intensive push-back due to its aim to disrupt and dismantle the existing structures of oppression
i am genuinely very very glad that you recognize the pornography industry as profoundly evil. here are the questions i would ask you: what makes it evil? what makes it destructive to the well-being and status of women and antithetical to female liberation at large? and, ultimately, why does it exist? whom does it serve, how does it perpetuate the exploitation and subjugation of women, how does it fit into larger systems of oppression?
if we were to follow all of the more heinous assaults on the privacy, soundness, health, dignity, safety and autonomy of the female body down to their root, we will find just that - the female body, and the heteropatriarchal relations of the sexes. and we will see that reproductive and sexual control, coercion and access are the very top prize the oppressor class would hate to give up. radical feminism will ask us to analyze every shape and form of the shackles and trace them back to the root relationship at the core of every form of abuse and subjugation ("who benefits from this?"); and ultimately, it would be insufficient for me to give up the rest of this awareness and class consciousness for the sake of any more liberal but sex industry-critical version of feminism. i undeniably want to practice discretion and rationalize every single aspect of any particular movement for myself, but i frankly just do not agree that i can criticize pornography effectively in isolation from a radical awareness of female subjugation & radical commitment to female liberation
i don't think radical feminism can be "hijacked" by transphobia. either of the two things is true: we define "transphobia" as the recognition of the biological sex over gender identity and how it must take priority in every conceivable political context whenever the rights of the female class is concerned (in which case radical feminism is "transphobic" by default); or we define "transphobia" as violence and discrimination (via denial of housing, employment, medical care, social neglect) against trans-identifying and transitioning individuals; in which case, as radical feminism concerns itself with the interests of the female class, i don't think any genuine form of it has space - and any genuine involved feminist activist the time - for campaigning against a group of people rather than for women. or, at the very best: radical feminism is not any more "hijacked" by transphobia as the fight for trans people's physical safety and dignity is "hijacked" by misogyny. we simply find ourselves in a situation of intense polarizing culture war in which the demands of the trans community have become unrectifiable with the interests of the female class, and the resulting tension has grown into what you perceive around you: mutual culture of mockery and harassment. i don't really interact with any women who are big into mockery and harassment. i imagine you could probably say the same for your own circle.
i understand what you mean when you say radical feminism cannot be "inclusive" of transmascs' issues: you probably conceptualize those issues through the lense of how much you value gender identification, recognition, and the freedom to transition and be respected in your transition. as a very neutral statement: i think it is okay for a viable, productive, and important political movement to not be inclusive of those needs. radical feminism does indeed have a specific view of trans identification and transition - one that is important to me and my politics - and that does not have to be a bad thing. ideas are not automatically violence. ideas are also not laws, and even though you are probably used to associating radical feminism with general trans-critical groups (many of which are fairly conservative), the way i see it (and you can definitely correct me), we actually represent very little threat to your bodily autonomy even if you define said autonomy as the right to transition. there are no radical feminist politicians. there are no radical feminist lobbyists. people pulling the strings 90% of the time are conservatives that love the heteropatriarchy and the gender hierarchy. this is why you see conservative detransitioners so often and radical feminist, leftist, gender-nonconforming homosexual detransitioners not at all - except for radical feminist spaces
but to the point of radical feminism not making space for your specific political goals;the same could be said about, for example, religious women. a Muslim woman who faces the pressure in a Western country to not wear her hijab will not feel represented by the radical feminist critique of Abrahamic and generally male-supremacist religions, especially the restrictions forced on women within religious countries and communities. she may feel hurt and angry that her fight for religious expression (which is undeniably colored by racism and xenophobia) is not something radical feminists would want to soften their critique of misogynistic religions for. she may say we do not represent her, so we are not for All women / females
at the same time, in another context, radical feminist fight for single-sex services for survivors of domestic violence would provide the same woman with a shelter that her community will know is a single-sex space. that means that once she leaves the shelter, she can be re-absorbed into her religious community instead of punished for the "indecency" for sharing living quarters with a male person of no relation to her. in that way, radical feminism can fight for that woman's safety and continued access to her religious community she may financially and physically depend on, without having to soften its political goals of dismantling religious patriarchal control. is it really all that bad, for a movement to exist without catering to every other goal and demographic? the trans rights movement is dismissive of and often detrimental to the interests of the female class. does radical feminism have to go, but the trans movement stay? how come?
i don't think it does any of us any favours to pursue a movement that makes everyone feel good or - even - supported in our every decision and choice. in fact, i had to face the discomfort of unpacking the reasons and, most crucially, effects of my own past nonbinary identification, in order to engage with radical feminism meaningfully. i didn't come to it because it was easy, comfortable and felt nice. i came to it because it was meaningful, eye-opening, connective and made sense. and it provided me with something i never had before in a true, uncensored way: female class consciousness and female solidarity.
i find it most meaningful to find solidarity with other females on the basis of our sex. i have changed my mind about my "gender" before. i find it infinitely more personally productive, invigorating and important to build solidarity on the basis of my immutable traits - the body i was born into - than my changeable and maleable, cultural context-dependant ideas of myself
to that last point of class consciousness and solidarity:
on my feelings towards radical feminist women and on-line communities
i found it very tragically ironic that you imagine that i have to be "patient" with people i disagree with strongly within my own community; so much so that you imagine me struggling for a different/"better" one. the reason is, ever since fully and passionately divorcing myself from queer online spaces after the response to the Collective Shout campaign (i don't know if you've heard much of that rumble) and seeing the worst of the worst of what the trans community specifically had to offer, i have stated multiple times that i cannot imagine the perseverance and patience it takes to continue trying to carve out a space within that community in which, for example, rape culture is not tolerated.
am i more patient for "tolerating" mean, brash, unempathetic women with a female class consciousness, than you are patient for intentionally sharing a community with people that celebrate pornography as part of "queer culture" and promote "trans rules of engagement" to shield perpetrators of interpersonal sexual harm? we both have reasons for the causes we prioritize and the circles we pursue. is my choice really profoundly, fundamentally that more unthinkable than yours? i deeply respect people active in the trans community that push against the worst aspects of it; it's something i couldn't do, i don't have the resilience for that; if you don't have the resilience for the worst radical feminism has to offer, that is fair enough. but i think it's disingenuous to say i somehow am dealing with more of inappropriate / unethical/ dangerous communal conduct than you.
and another element of it is: you probably surround yourself with people that don't advocate for pornography as a human right or promote rape apologism. i have seen the worst of yours; similarly, you must have seen the worst of mine. i will not at all, under any circumstances, deny that you may have suffered genuine misogynistic abuse from women that posit themselves as gender-critical radical feminists. i won't "no true scotsman" this.
i Will say that radical feminism is a movement and an ideology, not an identity, so i think we have slightly greater control of who we award the "title" to. being critical of the trans community is definitely not enough to qualify, and there is a persistent drive to lump us up with people who are not at all practicing feminist politics - even if they attempt to label themselves in such a way. but, yes - i have heard accounts of women being subject to awful treatment by other women from online radical feminist communities; and i am sure it happens offline, too.
i do, however, fully reject the following two notions: a) that radical feminists are exceptionally, uniquely misogynistic; b) that i myself am in some way special or an exception.
there are women rotating in this sphere that i don't think hold true to feminist principles in many crucial ways. i would not call them radical feminists at all. there are women on here that hold to radical feminist theory, but whom i strongly dislike and condemn and would not sit at a table with for other reasons, or for how they go about their feminist stances. there are women on here that have said things that upset me viscerally and made me feel less safe in the world. and then there are also women on here that are some of the very best people i've ever met (which, let's face it, will always be subjective). and there are women on here that are complex and messy and growing and learning like i am learning. literally: what is more normal than that?
here is what is most important to me: every single time i saw an upsetting display of petty misogyny on here, the push-back and clap-back were immediate. someone was there to put her foot down and say "this is not a feminist action, this is harmful and we should not stand by it". i could still feel deeply hurt, shaken, upset by such a display, but either me or another woman would say our "no" and get resounding support from others. not all, but many enough for me to know i am not crazy nor alone.
how do you expect us to practice politics if not in community (with free open entry, because how could we stop a woman for putting "radfem" in her bio even), and then by regulating said community, having communal conversations, re-aligning ourselves with our principles consistently? what is the alternative here. do you really see me reaching out to other women with requests and suggestions and criticisms of the communal conduct and think i am fighting a futile battle and need to be guided into the light, despite other women agreeing with me in response?
it is fair - because of the inter-communal tensions and the culture war and, let's face it, mutual propaganda campaigns - for you to feel personally, targetedly, hatefully victimized by the online (and/or offline) radfem communities. there are people within the community right now that can attest to having been hurt during their time of trans-identification. i won't deny the pain of that. however, there are also women on here that have been stalked, harassed, subjected to misogynistic assault, sent countless rape threats, ridiculed for specific and intimate details of their trauma - because they are "TERFs". i myself have also participated in the complete dehumanization of these women. not to this extent, but by gleefully stating that i wish for them to die, for example. a lot of them are lashing out in response - though of course not all response is justified and proportionate. a lot of them have conditioned themselves out of empathy for males of any stripes after years and years of manipulation and being made to sacrifice their own safety, sanity and well-being for the sake of men who supposedly needed their allyship and loyalty more than these women needed basic respect and human decency. it's not going to be pretty on here.
i have seen people in the trans community mock child sex trafficking survivors. that does not make me think you, the person sending this, are evil or uniquely patient. you probably have not seen as much of the worst of the worst. if you saw it, you'd probably go, "what a freak. that's not me or my friends. i want nothing to do with this." perhaps a small part of you would think, "this is really bad, but i understand why they would say this, because that's a TERF and they probably feel existentially threatened by her very presence."
radical feminism is a movement and a framework, and i do not perceive it as in any way inherently hateful or discriminatory. radblr is a social space. it's imperfect and it's absolutely full of traumatized women that are fighting for their right to speak their minds in a word that is actively, aggressively silencing them. and, yes, trans issues are one of the most high-tension, high-emotion topics here at the moment - but i want you to know women on here get absolutely vicious with each other for a plethora of other reasons. i have seen women express egregious sentiments towards each other, be cruel, uncompromising in truly bitter, damaging ways. almost every single time, i could trace it back to the violence we experience at the hands of men and the society at large. we police each other with absolutely neurotic, compulsive frevour, because we know how the failure of one of us would be used to undermine the rest of us. everyone is desperate for a caricature of a feminist: too ugly, too bitter, unprincipled, hypocritical, secretly yearning for beauty / male attention / etc etc etc. a feminist who stops being one after a good dicking. every single thing we do, as women, as feminists, as women of whatever sexual history and orientation, is filtered through the lense of worst-faith, most degrading, most oppressive projections of the male ego.
it's not feminist, to harass and hound and hurt each other as well as anti-feminist women (for radical feminists, that would include trans-identifying females, nonbinary and transmasc alike) to prevent the un-preventable, which is: being dismissed, mocked, degraded, fetishized, objectified by our oppressor. i am not excusing it. we should not be doing that, period. but if i am committed to female solidarity, i must attempt to understand it. i must attempt to give it all of the grace women are routinely denied.
i believe that you are engaging in ungenerous generalization of feminist communities by sending me this. you don't have to not be absolutely outraged on your own behalf for any cruel, disgusting treatment you've received. no "but" to add to that. i just don't think your characterization of radical feminism as a whole truly holds up. for example, i could indeed imagine someone on here being disgusting towards a detrans woman - but some of the most powerful and insightful voices i hear on here are of detrans women. have you spoken to them? have you heard much of their own experience in the radfem community? i'm one person, but i'm not a unique person, but my loyalty to and respect for detrans women runs as deep as my affection, care and concern for transmascs. their feminist perspectives are ones i hold as incredibly precious.
i absolutely cannot agree that radical feminists are raging misogynists that are more horrible about and towards women than your average liberal. i would take an angry, hurting, unmoderated woman who is outraged at the lack of class consciousness and solidarity, than a sensitive leftist man that watches porn on Sundays, every single day.
at this stage of my life, i want to focus on class solidarity among female people above, literally, anything else. the most vicious woman who will degrade me for my personal history holds less of a power to hurt me than any man in the world. i want to build community with people that do not yield this ungodly amount of structural power over me. people that don't make my voice smaller. people with whom i feel safe disagreeing so profoundly that i shake with anger and hurt. i want female solidarity. i want female-only communities. i want to know how to build vast, over-arching communities with women who may absolutely fucking hate each other a good amount of the time. i don't think we have any hope of liberating ourselves if we don't get dirty with it, if we don't fight, don't say the horrible things on our minds and process and move through them and decide whether we want to be around an individual woman at all, and if we don't, finding a way to deal with that. i will never condone misogynistic abuse of one woman by another, but it's just a fucking lie that women concerned with all of ours' class interests and physical survival are somehow uniquely misogynistic. at worst, they use ugly words, victim-blame too much, and alienate the most vulnerable among us. is this really worse than the ease with which a man can routinely degrade and objectify the entire female sex with one word or look or click of a mouse? i don't think i can ever meaningfully stop a man from un-personing me. i can call other women out, i can be supported by other women in doing that, and, at the end of the day, i can work with those supportive women to build spaces that moderate for the kind of abuse we all refuse to tolerate. at the end of the day, i want us to be free from men, not from each other. i want us to be able to connect with each other in spite of everything that tears us apart.
it's true that i want to connect with transmasc people. you won't like my way of putting it, but: the experience of radical female gender-nonconformity and unfeminization is incredibly touching, near and dear to my heart, easily familiar. but i cannot pursue female solidarity and liberation by prioritizing that one kind of experience and relationship with womanhood, especially since that relationship is, self-confessionally, fraught. and something i've become increasingly aware of is the experience of brave, secure, confident women that never gave an inch on their own experience of femaleness and never allowed for the simple fact of their visceral existence be redefined. these were the women i had previously neglected, and i want to cherish, respect and uplift them. i am not better than them just for having a more up-close, sympathetic view of the trans-identifying female experience. none of us would have had a ready home to come back to in feminism if these women hadn't held down the fort. i have found my way back to my understanding of my own class condition because of the women that hadn't backed down. if that comes at a price of them being obtuse and careless sometimes, so fucking be it
and again, ultimately: i am not special. i'm not fighting a lone losing battle. i am part of a conversation. i want to be part of that conversation. i'm new to it and i'm doing my best. i can only hope for other women's grace when i unavoidably get it wrong, and i see absolutely no good reason to refuse the same to them in the meantime.
I’m going to vent in your inbox. I’m sorry. If you do publish this, I genuinely wish you well and safety from the harassment that may come from it
I’m fairly certain I’m not a radfem, or I may not match 100% of what radical feminism, however trans men are currently in need of allies that aren’t stupid, I was online a lot as a kid and by the time I was thirteen I had started following a lot of trans women on social media and I really started to believe that my identity as a trans boy gave me some sort of privilege over them, because I saw a shit ton of hate, violence, rape threats, etc, directed towards them online and made a few transfem friends and the ones I made friends with were so mild mannered yet socially anxious and awkward I really just wanted them to feel safe and comfortable and not isolated, we were all just kids and I knew they were scared.
But I noticed my feelings changed when it became popular among them to deny that being raised male and starting off life with that privilege, is important to acknowledge, and that they should be mindful of the reality a lot of trans men live in having been born female and suffering systemic oppression because of that. And then the appropriation of radical feminism, which had previously been deemed as a harmful and straight up evil ideology, to be heavily combatted, was now actually correct and the only issue is that it didn’t center trans women, which makes no sense because radical feminism centering males goes against everything about it. We’re shoved into the “oppressor” class as trans men, and our higher rates of sexual assault, suicide, suicide attempts, mental illness, and domestic abuse, are now considered secondary concerns, or we can’t talk about us specifically, if I were to bring it up in a mixed group of trans people, I’d have to adjust my language to say “trans people” instead of just “trans men”, because it’s “transmisogynistic” to insist that there are systemic forces that impact me in a unique way that those born as male don’t have to worry as much about. One of the gotchas they love to bring up is V Coding, when a trans woman sent to a men’s prison is raped, by other inmates, by the guards, or given to the more rowdy inmates to “calm” them down. I believe rape in prison is a severe issue, however they use this as THE prime example of “something trans men and cis people don’t deal with”, as if women’s prisons aren’t literally just rape zones, added on top the risk of pregnancy and lack of actual reproductive healthcare in case a woman does get pregnant or an STD, the risk of dying from a pregnancy complication or childbirth, yet they don’t think about these things because a lot of trans women only think of themselves. It’s the same frustration I have with men in that they don’t stop to think about how a woman in the same situation as them, would have bigger challenges. Like they don’t conceive of it. However this group, they believe and are taught by their elders they are the ultra most oppressed, that even any privilege they have before does not matter at all and insisting it does is oppressing them further. It wasn’t healthy but I used to hate watch and follow along with incels, mras, alpha male bros, and the concepts are the same but these ones call themselves feminists. They even have the same bitterness and resentment of women who don’t wanna sleep with them. I know they’re not feminists because any actual feminist would look at the suffering of a female person and not immediately see it as a threat to their identity. But also a lot of them are genuinely just raging misogynists, and yeah, I don’t need to tell you this, y’all knew way before I did.
Even more infuriating to me is how many of them do not pass as female, but so badly want to be oppressed by those that are actually female. It is the most devious and interesting way I’ve seen one group dominate another, specifically males once again taking control and suppressing female people, and have said female people come to their defense. They call themselves proud misandrists sometimes to justify their bullying and prejudice of female people, of actual women, they don’t ever actually complain about men. They want to complain about trans men, “theyfabs”, and “terfs”, while being as misogynistic about it as they possibly could.
I feel like I’m the only one in my community that sees the situation for what it is, I think some others do but will not say it or are in denial. Hell I’m on anon saying this so clearly yeah, but it’s now become unsafe to talk about because we’ll be threatened with harassment and doxxing from our “sisters”, and we even police ourselves, I see a trans guy that says something that’s just a bit too real, and another will be like “hey it’s valid to feel angry but you’re saying a lot of TERF stuff which isn’t nice to trans women”, I don’t think I care anymore, I just see that we’re a vulnerable community with fucking zero protection and we get shunned for asking for it, and everyone is like “ugh those trans guys becoming radfems”, like maybe there’s a reason because we ain’t getting any help from them but we’re demanded to be there to defend them always. Grown male adults demanding from literal female teenagers that they better come to their defense to “protect the dolls” while infantilizing and belittling them all in the same breath.
I think I’ve got it all out, I’ll probably drop a follow, my opinions have changed very fast over the last few months so I was more critical of radical feminism than I am now, but if you do publish this just do me a favor and tell some of your gals to not be hateful in the comments if they are. I’ve stayed away for so long even as these feelings were forming because I’ve gotten harassment and mockery from self proclaimed radical feminists when venting about misogyny from personal experiences.
🫂 thank you very much for sharing this; i can see this has been building for a long long time, and it must be incredibly hard to be painfully peeling away from a community that has asked this much from you but refused to acknowledge the most basic facts of your struggle and existence. you have articulated all the factors at play very aptly here, and i'm glad you can see things for what they are, but sad you are in this situation to begin wih and facing it alone
(for what it's worth, i'm very new to these realisations myself, and i maybe only outran you by a couple months at best - it is not a personal failure of yours to not have seen it sooner)
it is amazing to hear you are willing to speak up despite the silencing tactics - but you also do point out the severe emotional and social cost. you deserve to be vocal and unapologetic, but please keep your safety in mind if you are in any way dependant on the community for your material needs. you deserve dignity, and it can be recovered by finding an exit as much as by standing your ground and putting your observations into uncompromising words. your life does not end here, and there are people that are willing to listen, understand and uplift you
there are transmasc feminists as well as rad-curious transmascs i could potentially connect you with if you're willing, just let me know! you are always welcome to dm me for that or any other purpose if you are comfortable with that
as for your request, i'd like to offer this as reassurance: this is a small, fairly curated blog on which i am fairly consistently vocal about my commitment to treating trans-identifying female people with nuance, sensitivity and dignity, so my understanding is that you don't have to anticipate any hateful responses to your vulnerable personal account ✊🏻 however, it is my promise to you and any other person who uses this space to share something intensely vulnerable that i will absolutely moderate any such ask and remove any comment that bears the risk of hurting someone in a tough emotional spot.
as a side note, and i mean this very gently: i think "your gals" comes off as a bit condescending; they're women and they're their own, not mine in any regard; but this is just a gentle direction. i can recognize you sent this in an emotional state, and i do not expect you to polish every sentence and be very discenring with your tone. so if you did not mean it that way, do not beat yourself up about it, just take it as a note if you ever decide to send another ask in, ok? :)
you do not have to follow of course, but could i ask that you watch this space? i am likely to share another woman's project on here in the coming weeks that may be of interest to you; i'd really like for you to hear about it. regardless of any of that, i wish you all of the best and am very very grateful for your willingness to trust a stranger with your experience. it is my hope to honour it ✊🏻 ❤️🩹
So bizarre to me that MtFs don't want FtMs to detransition because it makes them / the trans community look bad, but they'll constantly abuse and demean us, and talk about us like we're the literal scum of the earth. I don't get it
🫂✊🏻 thank you for sharing; i definitely think it is a lose-lose situation of profound misogyny (and it's worth breaking that word down; not just looking down on female people, disrespecting female people, engaging in stereotyping around female people; misogyny = woman-hating). for a misogynistic enough person or community, there isn't something you can do to Avoid displeasing them.
i think female detransition ultimately benefits their narratives, too. they love to treat femaleness as an intrinsic quality of duplitiousness and betrayal. "every transmasc will just detransition into a TERF either way", "trans men will misgender themselves at the drop of a hat to reap the ~rewards of Assigned Femaleness~", so on and so forth. the way i see it, they want you compliant and subservient enough to uphold the masc half of the transgender ideology sky (to validate gender and transition, it cannot be male-exclusive), but they will hate you regardless and will expect you to abandon it regardless, because femaleness Is the ultimate enemy. and when someone Does abandon it, that is the retrospective validation for every shred of mistreatment, because the deplorable affliction in you that can never be cured is that you Can detransition back to femaleness as a natural state
it's tough and it's toxic and you deserve much much better than that
One thing I'm constantly questioning is if transfems are aware of how manipulative they are, or if they're genuinely ignorant to all the tactics they're using to control others.
Like, within the trans community, whenever a transmasc has feminist class consciousness for example, or calls out a transfem for predatory behavior. The transfems in the discussion always jump to shit like, "you want transfems dead!!", "you're exploiting your male privilege!!", "this is social murder!!" (Social murder is their new favorite term btw. But by "social murder" they mean "getting transfems banned from tumblr").
They also constantly accuse transmascs in general of being TERFs - basically just the ultimate dirty word.
Wherein a transfem lies multiple times, denies it, doubles down, and then says she's just doing all this to "distract [a transman] from trying to murder a tranny".
Like... do they actually believe this shit? Genuinely, deep in their heart? Or is it all intentional control tactics??
I know every single person is individual and that the answer is probably nuanced. Abusers in general are rarely black and white like that. But I really, really have a hard time believing that they genuinely believe random transmascs online talking about misogyny is leading to the literal murder of transfems. Yet they say it CONSTANTLY.
yeah :( i imagine it is incredibly hard and frustrating to navigate; i can testify that during my time of impassioned and committed trans(fem) advocacy, the things that were being fed to me from the greater communal zeitgeist were internalized very genuinely. if you don't mind me addressing trans rhetoric overall, it kind of relies on two phases/strategies as far as i have observed it: 1) saying something confidently and passionately enough times for the sentiment to become normalized through re-iteration rather than rationalization; 2) appealing to the vulnerability of the group as the reason Why you should internalize the impassioned reiteration rather than consciously and consistently rationalize the line of thinking for yourself. and both with the specific rape culture rhetoric that's become very commonplace And with the treatment of transmascs within the trans community, it's kind of made abundantly clear that the main beneficiaries of this have always been transfems
so yes, you're probably right that it's most likely a good mix of both and it's hard to say for any individual person; but i think it Is valid and vitally important to acknowledge the ultimate effect of it (complete silencing and isolation of any community member who's doing a "wrongthink", and active communal gaslighting of vulnerable victims), as well as Why this rhetoric is so popular and "transfeminists" in particular are so attached to it: whether they are consciously manipulating others or have successfully conditioned themselves into an overblown victim complex, the reason they'd latched onto the latter so sincerely is because it feels good, it's incredibly convenient, and it benefits them in every possible intra-communal context. i'd imagine some of them are as genuine about it as redpilled men are genuine in their assertion that they've been wronged and victimized on a societal scale; which is to say, they're happy to internalize a picture of the world that allows them to feel incredibly emboldened and entitled in their misogynistic hatred
what are your thoughts on the way some people compare ftms to tradwives or conservatives? because personally as a transman/ex-transman (it's complicated lol), i feel like it is weird to act like we are completely comparable to our oppressors just because some ftms are misogynistic. not only can left wing people absolutely be misogynistic but it's a little tone deaf to me to act like a group of women who are often gnc and lesbian/bisexual are hand in hand with the alt right. It's similar to when tras call radfems conservatives, (like that is a butch lesbian feminist. come on) and in line with the whole "everyone with different politics than me is alt right"
this is a very interesting valid point so the following will be me unpacking and developing my own thoughts & is not my definitive final answer! i absolutely value more of your feedback
i think there are two ways to draw the comparison, one analytic and one cathartic, and an analytical comparison will definitely require us to be detailed, nuanced, consistent and avoid over-generalization. i Could see the point of highlighting how the concept of gender is upheld and jealously guarded from either side of the political spectrum (conservatives love gender roles, trans-iding individuals love gender identity), and through that point out the regressive politics of the trans ideology and rhetoric; i could also see the merit in highlighting how both the trad culture and the trans movement overall ultimately operate in the interests of male supremacy and prioritize the voices and comfort and desires and, ultimately, empowerment of males at the cost of women's freedom and self-determination. these are the two points of intersection that, if discussed with appropriate nuance and consideration, seem valuable enough to talk about to me.
but once again, the analytical approach must not terminate there and, indeed, highlight the vulnerability of transmascs under the conservative gender hegemony, AS WELL AS not treat "tradwives" as... the enemy? i think any comparison between (and i appreciate you may not be fully comfortable with the words i use here) these two groups of ultimately vulnerable women that are severely isolated in deeply misogynistic communities, at increased rates of domestic violence and communal ostracization should they step out of line, and being actively fed rhetoric that is almost always detrimental to female class solidarity, has to actually consciously avoid caricaturizing either the transmascs or the tradwives as The Group Of Females That Somehow Benefit From Anti-Feminsit Rhetoric. they do not, they suffer for it; and the ultimate oppressive perpetrators of essentialist gender structures are always the males. (this is not to say you would be in the wrong to consider yourself materially harmed and threatened by a conservative straight conforming woman's politics, community or just interpersonal conduct)
you Are ultimately right that it would be absolutely incorrect to say transmascs are buddy buddy with the alt right movement and communities & it Is in many ways tone-deaf to erase the oppressive dynamic at hand (after all, we do always argue that gnc women will be harmed by conservative politics regardless of how they identify, so to make an exception for transmascs as Un-threatened by conservativism would be nonsensical); and i think anyone who ignores that and uses "tradwife" (or, dare i say, "handmaiden") as an insult or a gotcha is acting against the genuine feminist interest as far as actual literal right-wing women are concerned, As Well as against the feminist interest wrt transmasc issues. the cathartic approach is absolutely lacking in nuance and intention, provides us with nothing, alienates vulnerable women from feminist discussions and deserves to be called out imo, so thank you for doing that ✊🏻
I'm FTM but once you see how contradictory and inconsistent gender ideaology is, you can never unsee it and its fucking me up.
You're supposed to believe that trans women are women, and always have been, but that they're also `so traumatized~ by having girlhood denied to them and not experiencing misogyny
You're supposed to believe there's no meaningful biological difference, but that denying them medical transition is so cruel as to be tantamount to genocide.
You're supposed to believe that male puberty doesnt make a difference when it comes to size, strength, sports, etc, but that "forcing" trans-identified kids to go through male puberty is a form of torture or mutilation.
You're supposed to believe that they're not meaningfully different than women in any way, but because they're Trans they actually experience an extra special misogyny that's more oppressive than any women has ever experienced, and therefore women actually oppress them!
Literally everything to do with biological sex is meaningless unless it can be used to benefit them. Its so twisted.
wanted to post this one because you are definitely definitely not alone - i'll be putting it in the tag with other statements by transmascs many of whom are feeling disillusioned and angry with the patterns of ideological indoctrination & hypocrisy in this male-led & male-centered movement.
i'm very grateful that you are engaging with it all in terms of women's realities and positions & biological sex - i appreciate there is probably a degree of personal unease, discomfort or distress that comes with it. i always appreciate when transmascs are willing to make themselves uncomfortable in order to re-associate with the rest of female people at least to a degree, in order to effectively discuss the realities we all experience - your effort is noticed and very much honoured. the position you are in, still being emebdded in the community / having your sense of self exist within that communal context, while also feeling ideologically pressured and (if you allow me to interpret based on your words) lied to, is a very vulnerable one
i really hope you can find like-minded people to stick close to to navigate this; it's something i always come back to, because - evidently - there are so much more of you than it may seem, and you deserve to not feel scared and isolated
I'm sorry you're getting a lot of transmasc asks and I'm about to add onto it. Rape ment tw.
My mom has become a full tirf in the way that she's opening up to rf theory but includes tfems in her analysis while including tmascs in her hatred for men.
I'm transmasc and was raped by a coworker some time ago now. When I was in her car (carpooling) sobbing because I didn't want to go to work she yelled at me and told me I just needed to get over it and power through and has insinuated I lied/exaggerated despite the fact that everyone around me including her has picked up I had been acting strange for months leading up to admitting what happened. Meanwhile her tfem friend got a weird comment online and it's a violent act of misogyny.
If I mention that it's weird how when hrt and surgery which should be the trans community's biggest fight comes up that it's really noticeable that the focus is calling tmascs mutilated and calling our bodies disgusting on fox news is what's used to discuss bans and restrictions that the trans community is silent but she thinks it's not as big of a deal as sports because tfems are more affected by that debate so it's right to not focus on that. Like the other ask said I know you don't agree with transitioning but is that not odd...?
What's your stance on tirfs that specifically include tfems? Mine is I find it just so bizarre to me that a feminist woman can completely ignore the birth sex of tmascs especially when it's used against them. I feel like this is why birth sex has to be the foundation of rf theory because I can't figure out how someone can ignore the material conditions of your sex class to this degree for the sake of another class's feelings. It's very inconsistent with rf beliefs but also I'm not a full rf so I don'treally have the right to comment...
Tfems already have mainstream feminism fighting for them so I don't understand what the issue is for having a group that focuses mainly on sex. Everyone gets covered that way. I also feel like if tirfs included both tmascs and tfems they'd get pushback from tfems for tmascs being included. Maybe that sounds uncharitable to tfems but you can only get called a transandrocunt zippertits fakemale testosterone girl by a group so many times before you start to be weary...
hi anon, i'm sorry it took me a couple of days to get to this one - i wanted to make sure i have time to go into detail in response, as i can see this is a very vulnerable and emotionally intense conversation for you 🫂i hope you will ultimately be okay with the direction i take with this, too
i'll start with the "TIRF" question and then go more into depth into what you've shared about your mother, just to clarify some things, including this:
i honestly do not think "TIRF" is a coherent ideology or label to apply to someone. it existing as a "counter-balance" to "TERF" - which is not a real thing - is telling enough. radical feminism is rooted in the observation of sex-based oppression and the goal of the liberation of the female sex. period. that makes "TERF" a non-sensical label, and "TIRF" to me sounds just like "i don't like choice feminism & i'm willing to acknowledge the existence of sex but i'm not nasty evil and don't want to have to be seen as a mean un-nuanced transphobe." my honest, genuine, sincere assessment of anyone using that label is that it's cringe and lackluster. it's not a theory that stands on its own feet, it's a deliberate and reactive disassociation from feminists radically committed to the interests of the female sex.
i also do not think people define "TIRF" consistently. i've seen people use it to mean "i like second-wave feminist writing and i will interpret it in a way that makes it accommodate transitioned males". i've seen people use it to mean "i believe in sex-based oppression but i also believe in gender identity and want to unequivocally support transmascs' right to transition and self-identification". i've seen someone say "TIRFs" include transmascs in the oppressor class, like what you seem to describe with your mother?? the last type is uniquely nonsensical to me i absolutely do not understand it & i think out of all of them it is the most profoundly anti-feminist, like you say.
but, you see what i'm getting at here?.. "TIRF" can mean anything, because there aren't any core theses that unite them from what i have observed, and because they mostly want to feel like they're doing serious (rather than mainstream girlboss) feminism w/o being called "TERFs", because "TERFs" are a) evil, b) get harassed. i will admit i didn't spend much time looking into it bc the one person i followed for a bit who seemed to attempt to do some more-or-less consistent "TIRF" theorizing was just... not making much sense in debates with gender-critical radfems. but yes at the moment i just. see no reason to take them seriously.
all that being said, i... wonder what you mean by your mother opening up to radical feminist ideas. does that extend beyond "self-identified women are my friends, self-identified men are the enemy"?.. obviously people are complex and messy, and it is possible she is genuinely resonating with many ideas of radical feminism, but treating them as ideas that are surface-level-applicable to her life and experiences as a woman, but without a commitment to a deeper analysis of where those ideas stem from. (that, i agree, WOULD be quite "TIRF"-y: a collection of theses without a unifying underlying principle). but if her analysis of the female condition terminates at the relationship between femininity and masculinity, for example, this indeed has little to do with genuine feminism and female liberation.
and, ultimately, in your experience; is her dislike of transmascs mostly expressed as mistreatment of you?.. this might be a hard question to sit with, but if, ultimately, you are the transmasculine person in her life, the only one bringing up transmasc issues, and the main recipient of her ire and displeasure, i think this.. may have less to do with her understanding of gender identity and sex, and much more to do with you having a mother who is, on a basic, fundamental level, male-identified to the extent of neglecting and hurting her own female child.
i would be speaking from my own experience when i say: being in liberal circles turned me into a "progressive antifeminist", because i dedicated myself fully to the (trans) male interest and well-being at the expense of safety and dignity of other women. i find it one of the most dangerous parts of transgender ideology: it turns well-meaning, empathetic, caring women against themselves. because, ultimately, even the most rebellious and aware of us wish to serve male interest, uphold male supremacy, seek male validation. it is an incredibly uncomfortable truth to sit with: how happy i was to find, in transfems, the kind of man i could prostrate myself before without it being way too ~cisheteropatriarchal~. it feels good, to say they are more important than you. but because transfems are "more important" because they are "more vulnerable", it feels less like a capitulation to the status of the "meek", "weak" and dumb, like the bimbo or tradwife ideal. instead, we get to uphold and venerate men because they are special and fragile and their souls are just so much more complex and femininely beautiful than ours you see!!
with my codependent strategies and martyr/saviour complex, i JUMPED at the bit to find a sense of purpose and identity in serving male interest, but in a way that made me COOL and PROGRESSIVE and KIND and an INDEPDENDENT THINKER, and, ultimately, told me i was EMPOWERED and PRIVILEGED and using that privilege for the good of the disenfranchised. what's not to like here! i think this is INCREDIBLY alluring to liberal women w/o class consciousness, who never got to fulfill the male servitude and subjugation script we are all indoctrinated into bc girlboss feminism told them bowing to a man is embarrassing, but, lo an behold! we get to WHITE-KNIGHT for the world's SPECIALEST man instead! we're like Pavlov's dogs who decided we've broken our conditioning bc they've switched the timbre of the bell we salivate to. and it feels good to let ourselves give in to it. we've been raised to do it.
ultimately, my guess would be not that your mother feels a particular sense of kinship with transfems because of their shared "identity" or relationship to femininity; i think, more so, she is unconsciously relieved to find the "right" group of men to be loyal to w/o embarrassing herself
i am so, so sorry about how she treated your recent sexual victimization (and i am so unspeakably sorry it happened to you, and truly hope you are in a safer place now 🫂). i truly think this is a moment that betrays she has not connected to the sex-based root of your shared oppression, and that she is doing the much easier, much more natural, much less demanding thing, which is: ally with males and betray the well-being of females, including, again, you, her own child. and, if you would allow me to compare it to mother-daughter dynamics at a larger scale (i hope you are okay with me using those words as well), i think it unfortunately traces to the greater pattern of them very well
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2. to start with my own: my mother is relatively-liberal, more so in recent years than in my youth; she is educated, a life-long professional in a male-dominated field, a once-entrepreneur, comfortably divorced, conforming but never pursuing a high degree of femininity (neutral make-up, short hair, comfortable casual style of clothes, but always always shaved). she has expressed distaste for some basic feminist ideas while very readily and comfortably applying feminist analysis to her own life and patterns of her up-bringing.
she divorced my father after he'd left her for another (much much younger) woman, after cheating on her throughout their marriage. her analysis of this situation is feminist to a Degree; she understands clearly she was mistreated by a man, as a woman; she has seen first-hand how divorce proceedings favour men; she has watched him comfortably move on to a new family while it was held as a Given that she would be left to keep raising the two kids still living with her; but: she Detests my father's new wife for her age, rather than fearing for her safety, and i suspect her understanding of male sex addiction, sexual entitlement and infidelity might largely come in a form of bio-essentialism (Men Are Over-Horned Pigs That Cannot Control Themselves).
this little profile is to illustrate how i think it is very natural - more so, unavoidable - for women to gain a degree of awareness of their female condition over the course of their lives, without developing a full and well-rounded class consciousness. conservative women observe their condition and the gendered dynamic, religious women do it, liberal women do it, women in entirely different cultural contexts do it. it's impossible to Not understand Some things about the situations we are all placed in, and sometimes, we will hear a thought, an idea, an observation, a slogan that articulates a bit of that experience in a way that resonates. i think this might be happening with your mother: she does not necessarily have a profound and holistic feminist consciousness, but she has awareness of her own lived experiences, and she probably welcomes ideas that help her contextualize them in a manner that feels comforting and cathartic
now, back to mine and to our relationship in the context of being hurt by the same man (my father): my hurt was one of childhood sexual victimization (nothing too brutal, but with a lot of impact on me, and a lot of staying power). clearly, we were both hurt by the same porn-sick, entitled man addicted to sex and incapable of seeing a woman or girl and not immediately interpreting her body as a sexual object that exists for his gratification. clearly, we must understand each other instinctively and stand by one another in a united front.
i wish i could say i found a lot of comradery and support in my mother as my confidant, but instead, it's been a largely lonely road. she did believe me (after an initial bout of skepticism); she did not reject me; she even held me after i told her the truth & said she always thought of me as "brave" and "resilient". but i do not get the feeling that what i've told her has... majorly radicalized her. against male sexual violence, or even against my father, specifically. she already thought of him as a scumbag. learning more / having some things confirmed didn't change much. it just brought me over from the "enemy" camp* into someone unequivocally on Her side.
[* before i Realized Things my relationship with my father was much more affectionate than the one with my mother; and a lot of the angst i Had experienced before realizing how distorted and wrong the things between us were, was over the fact that i semi-consciously felt like i was in sexual competition with my mother. so i think me coming forward and talking about the state of things from the perspective of being a victim, rather than a "collaborator", helped her feel less like i was aligning with him / like there was this large subtle conspiracy against her. it's all a bit fucked up haha.]
and even though she already hated his guts, when i told her i was going to talk to more people - out of concern for a very young girl in his life - she still hit me with the good old, "you could ruin his life, you know. are you ready for that kind of responsibility?"
(didn't ruin his life one bit, by the way. didn't even put a dent in his new marriage.)
the reason i'm saying all of this is to illustrate how misogyny, male identification, and especially i would say self-preservation instincts in women trying to navigate a profoundly woman-hating world, and the defense/preservation instincts in mothers of daughters, specifically, mean that women are severely under-equipped in holding each other with grace and consideration in situations of sexual harm, and mothers especially are inclined to adding onto, facilitating, denying, downplaying, minimizing, avoiding thinking about, the sexual harm encountered by their female children.
a more public case would be Gisele Pelicot. coming to an awareness about having been victimized by dozens of strange men, at the hands of her husband, has no way of not making her aware of her position as a woman. however, that did not save her from instinctive self-protective attitudes rooted in male identification, and, ultimately, in ruining her relationship with her daughter by refusing to accept the sexual abuse experienced by her at the hands of the same man.
i contributed to the conversation about their situation a bit here. i really recommend reading Caroline Darian's book I'll Never Call Him Dad Again for anyone who can relate to that family dynamic and/or wants to understand it; my key insights from it are:
even after learning about everything that had been done to her, Gisele still fussed over her husband's well-being and making sure he had what he needed in prison - male identification, the inability of a severely traumatized, unspeakably victimized woman to prioritize herself or the female class overall when faced with the plight of a singular, deplorable man
Dominique Pelicot used the sway he had over her to polarize the family and set Gisele against Caroline, who was much more uncompromising in her rejection of him as a family member - male identification is weaponized, the mother is ultimately more interested in protecting the abusive husband & father than in communicating with, supporting, and trusting her own daughter
when Caroline reached out to her with her dread and suspicion of having been her father's first victim, Gisele dismissed her out of hand - the female child is not believed, even by a woman who has learned first hand how horrifying and shameless of an abuser the husband is
this dynamic has evidently persisted beyond the scope of the book, into the public trial, after which Gisele chose to scold Caroline for shouting at her abuser father, saying she was "making a scene" or trying to make it about herself.
as you may see in the post linked, if you decide to read through it, there are many ways we can interpret this. ultimately, for me, the reason for this heartbreaking situation is likely to be a combination of many, many factors. Gisele would most likely struggle to process the idea of Caroline's vicitmization because she would feel personally responsible; because it would make her own victimization that much more real / make it that much worse. and i also think that she probably, despite it all, processes her own experience in an individualistic fashion, sees herself as a sole and random victim, and does not wish to face how overwhelmingly, unavoidably systemic the sexual abuse of women and girls is, because, again, that would make her case seem like it was unavoidable; especially if the precursor for it was taking place inside her very house. that is my feeling on the matter. some women individualize their trauma of womanhood, and look away when other women, especially younger, more vulnerable women, are hurt. and mothers, especially mothers who are used to treating their female children as therapists, or helpers, or carriers of the burden of their own pain, will way too often refuse to take onto too much of an emotional burden when the daughters themselves turn out to be hurting in ways that make it all seem... way too familiar, circular, like a curse. especially - especially - when the mother has reason to fear any sense of responsibility or guilt.
so ultimately my offer to you, if you are open to it, is not to trust in and analyze your mother's feminist consciousness, and not to think that the reason for how she responds to your pain (or the pain of transmasc people overall, if you are, ultimately, the main person representing your group to her) lies in her politics around gender and gender identity. i think it might be much more productive for you, much more helpful, cathartic, healing, to develop your own consciousness as far as the condition of our sex-based oppression affects the relationship between mothers and their female children.
i always, always, always recommend @valeriezine 's issue 5. it has so many incredibly powerful entries from so many women of differing experiences. my entry is in it, and i want to emphatically point to the entry by @/sshport22, to Like Mother, Like Daughter by Alaine W., to the entry by @/scrappy-dood, and to I made her pretty for you: The Role of Mothers in Sexual Abusive Households by Laire Redban / @/shoppinghauer. i've posted it before, but there is a quote from the latter that i think about a lot (shortened version below):
"[M]others tend to select who is the target of their trauma-induced wrongs, and they usually select their daughters. They present themselves as their best versions to their sons, husbands, nephews, fathers so their worst one is reserved for their daughters, nieces, even their own mothers. <...> Women fight for their position in the pecking order. Women fight for an underclass of women and girls who are OK to abuse. This position is obtained via race, class, age and social status.
In the case of mothers, their higher status in comparison with daughters gives them a free pass and the power to create that underclass within their own families."
i feel like this really captures the situation of continuous, heart-wrenching betrayal we see time and time and time again from older women, especially mothers, when younger female people are victimized and maimed in the horrendous rape machine that is our entire global society.
please feel free to tell me if i have overstepped or overassumed, but i would really like to urge you to consider if this dynamic with your mother has less to do with your gender identity (though it can definitely play a role, too, if she considers your non-conformity in any way "disappointing"), and actually much much more to do with your sex, which she herself may not wish to acknowledge in her relation to you. this may not be a question of her misdirecting her feminism, and much more so a question of her not wanting to acknowledge the realities of being female, especially when it comes to you, her female child, who she may have a hard time relating to and an even harder time accepting the burden of your pain, because of how profoundly "toxic" some mothers decide to make it for themselves to interact with.
i hope some of this connects, and you do not feel spoken over or preached to. if any of this feels like it might be relevant to your relationship, i once again just really hope you keep seeking out writing that helps you understand it. i don't know if you can ever fully understand her, or hope for her to understand you, but i really want you to know that you are not alone regardless. please stay safe and take good care of yourself 🫂
