This will be a journal articulating some of my thoughts and experiences on being trans. I decided this might be a good idea to help connect with some people and maybe add valuable insight to discussions of trans masculine experiences. There is an unfortunate amount of erasure that keeps much of our experiences from being known, and so if sharing my own might help combat that, then I would hope to try to be helpful.
This will also be a journal in the direct sense I might post some writing speaking about specific memories and related feelings. It'll be an outlet for me to express that in writing, and may help me better articulate and process it for myself. Analysis and self expression.
However, a warning is necessary.
I'm going to be talking about some heavy stuff here, which I will put content/trigger warnings in the tags here.
CW/TW -
Posts may include -
discussions/descriptions of transphobic abuse, discrimination, and harassment
discussions of emotional, physical, and sexual abuse
discussions of suicide and mental health struggles
descriptions of bullying
mentions of other bigotries such as racism, homophobia, misogyny, intersexism, etc.
discussion of religious abuse
Some posts may involve direct warnings but even if not I'll do my best to properly tag the contents of each and every post involving sensitive matters.
My life -
So for some context, I have majority grown up in a very rural, very religious, conservative area. During which I experienced several consecutive years of severe trauma, some relating to being trans, some not, although of course, my discussions here are trans-focused.
My experiences are very largely painted by this background, and I make no claim to their universality.
I am one transmasc person, who cannot speak to the unique experiences of others including how the intersections of their lives and other identities may influence their own transness and experiences with such, like their races, ethnicities, being intersex, being from other places or religious backgrounds, or so on.
Please listen to a diversity of voices. My own is just that, my own. It will have many things it can share with others, but it isn't all-encompassing.
About Me -
I am an autistic genderqueer dude in my mid 20s. I am medically transitioning. My identity is personal, nuanced, and complex, but to boil it down:
I am not a woman, but I am butch, and a dyke. Dyke as an important and specific word to my identity. One that was originally used to cast me outside of womanhood, which I have reclaimed outside of womanhood. Dykehood is important to me, in relationship to my GNC experiences, the overlap in my transmasculinity, and their relationship to my queer attraction to women as a masc afab person- raised to eventually end up married to a man, to be a Wife, raised to be feminine and accessible to cishet men, and the experience when you end up doing none of those things. Failing to be a woman in the way they wanted, ending up not being a woman at all. Specifically loving women in a queer way, as a butch.
I will mention, that my self definitions do not imply anything about anyone else's. I respect and appreciate straight trans men who do not have the same experiences with their sexuality the way I do, or define them as I do. I also do not think sexuality is inherently tied to agab, and transfemme lesbians are important, valuable sapphics. But I all my experiences with sexuality are, well- dykey. My sex, my dating, my sexual expression and discovery. I love the butch/femme dynamic and its history, and it's important to my relationship too. That's been my experience and still is my experience, even when I am not a woman.
But I am also a trans man, and my transness is integral to my manhood. It not being completely reflective to cis manhood does not invalidate it either, it illustrates it. The fight for my masculinity and the freedom to be who I am informs the way I am a guy. The self discovery, the joy of transition, the struggle. There was not a moment in my life the right to my own masculinity was given to me, I had to create it. I am not ashamed of that. It's important to who I am that every step of the way, I refuse that shame.
Lastly, I am genderqueer. Not in a sense of neutrality or a third gender, but that my gender is... queer. Compared to how it is expected to be embodied, it is unusual, strange, it does not conform to expectation. I use the word genderqueer to describe the state of who I am. I use all of these words to describe the way that I am. Labels are not absolute, mutually exclusive groups and territories with unbreakable rules and essential implications on any person using them. They encompass many aspects and experiences, they can mean different things to different individuals, and they can also evolve in definition. They hold collective, complex meanings.
They're descriptors, and I am describing myself. Genderqueer is a word to umbrella the above, that I use what is seen as mix gendered labels. That there's an unremovable queerness to all aspects of my identity, and I live a life of both someone who is a trans guy, and a butch. Whether or not you agree with which words I use, myself and my life, my experiences and expression, those do not change.
These parts of me are not separate, but all meld together, and are all of equal importance. I'm a guy in a butch way, and I'm a butch in a dude way. That fight for the masculinity of my manhood is the same for the masculinity of my butchness. I am not the first to feel like this, nor the last.
If this confuses you, just understand gender is a complex spectrum of things, not everyone is so cleanly categorized into precise boxes with no overlap or distortion. Even these words don't fully capture it, but they're the words I use to best describe my experience of myself. I will not whittle your personhood down and define you through my standards, I ask you do not for me.
Most of all, I am an individual.
On Discourse -
I likely will be using tags like "transandrophobia" on certain posts where think it to be applicable. I'm not interested in participating in discourse about the word's validity. Transmasc-related transphobia will be discussed here because I will be talking about what I've faced over my life. I will also be using other terms or labels as well. I know some can be contentious, largely depending on who you ask, but the flipping from term to term gets in the way in my opinion. The use is for the utility, not a statement of allegiance with any individual, ideology, or group.
However, this blog operates on a fundemental basis that transmasculine focused transphobia and bigotry is absolutely real, and deserving discussion. If you come here believing that it isn't, that somehow our experiences can be watered down into 'general' transphobia, that there is no specific struggles of the intersection of our identities, then I'm just going to say plainly that you are wrong, and I do hope you open your mind to how it contributes to our erasure to dismiss our perspectives.
To demonize us by saying we all only want to talk about these things for petulant, attention-seeking, or malicious purposes robs us of voice and plays into transphobic and misogynistic stereotypes of trans men and trans masculine people.
I have no interest in participating in arguments, I am here only speaking of tangible, lived reality.
The dismissal of the discussion of anti transmasculinity has been disheartening, but for those who have shared I have been deeply grateful to put a name to the things I have experienced. It has inspired me to talk more on my own life. There is serious and deadly erasure that goes so far to have even fellow queer people completely treat the struggles of being transmasculine as illegitimate. It is isolating and dangerous.
My discussions here are to help connect with others who may not have heard other people talk about what they've gone through. It is here to potentially give insight into transmasc experiences, albeit just my own.
I do not think this discussion undervalues or overtakes discussions of transmisogyny. Transmisogyny is very real, and pervasive, and is not to be tolerated here.
I will also mention, if you are transfemme and see a post describing experiences labeled as transandrophobia and think "well this isn't an exclusively transmasc experience, something very similar happens to me/is a part of transmisogyny" you're totally right to notice that! These concepts flow into each other, they are branches of the same tree, they are related in their root in patriarchy and gender essentialism but can be expressed in unique, targeted ways. Sometimes different hows, but very similar whys.
I have no intent to discuss the perception and treatment of transmasc people to say they are completely mutually exclusive from others- they may take similarly familiar forms expressed in different ways, through different lenses. By putting names to terms and experiences I am not saying they are immutable, mutually exclusive concepts from any other experiences with/operations of transphobia. Things are too complicated for that. All of our issues as trans people intermingle. That doesn't invalidate giving different intersections a name and a voice to help explain and understand them. That's the first step necessary in order to combat them, and help uplift those affected.
Whenever I see a non-transmasc person say that people aren't very transphobic to transmascs, or they're not transphobic in unique ways, because they don't see it.... it just makes think of my family member who gets defensive whenever I bring up how the church they go to is very bigoted to queer people, because, well, that can't be true- they never personally encounter it.
But it's like, girl, they don't have a reason to be homophobic around you, because you're not queer. Just because they're not preaching their homophobia from the rooftops, that they're not out on the street with signs, does not mean they're not full of insidious and dangerous bigotry.
Sometimes it takes being confronted with the object of their disdain directly to bring their hatred about that target out into the open.
If there's not a gay person around, if we don't come up in conversation, then they get to live in the perfect little reality where they can pretend we don't exist. But I get the full time experience of being that unpleasant reminder that we do in every interaction with them. They have opinions about that, and they take actions that have actively hurt me in reaction to that.
So if you're wondering what it's like, maybe ask the people who experience it?? Instead of gauging my reality on your own personal encounters.
It doesn't matter if it doesn't come up much for you, your church is fucking homophobic
Hey does anyone remember when a transgender adult man with cerebral palsy got top surgery of his own accord and then posted about it in celebration, and then transphobes:
Lied and said he was non-verbal
Lied and said he was incapable of communication
Lied and said he had not gotten the surgery of his own accord
Lied and said his "guardians decided [he] was trans"
Got MGT to call a procedure done on a consenting adult "criminal" just because he had cerebral palsy
Mass reported his video and his account, which he ran, until facebook terminated his account for "child exploitation" despite it being his account, him being an adult, and him not being exploited
Ableism and transphobia are inseperable. Just like ableism was used to prop up bigotry throughout history, now it is being used to deny transgender people bodily autonomy the same way it is used to deny disabled people bodily autonomy. It's not a coincidence that so much of the rights transphobic rhetoric is focused on labelling us as "mentally ill". They don't think any disabled people, let alone mentally ill people should have independence or liberation.
<p>Micah Leroy, who ran the account known as “Disabled Trans Boy” on Instagram, became the subject of a right-wing hate campaign after he po
While I definitely agree that all kinds of top surgery scars should be represented in art, I do raise an eyebrow about Those trans guys who get weirdly bothered with how it's not uncommon to see more pronounced or exaggerated top surgery scars portrayed in drawings.
Like for one, some people's scars do heal in very thick, obvious ways, so note that. But also, these depictions are often an stylized representation of top surgery scars rather than a literal, true-to-life portrayal. Especially when they're in a cartoonish style, they're drawn in the commonly recognized shape language of cartoon scars. Thick, pointy, and jagged.
While I understand the desire to see all sorts of top scars drawn, or more relatively realistic ones, and I really do want to see that too, to be genuinely offended and irritated about how other trans people chose to portray their bodies and identities in their art is, imo, Weird actually?? Specifically when you're being disrespectful over it
You can have your personal feelings of course, your personal tastes- but like, make sure to Be Normal to others and Be Normal to trans artists? Be Normal about the ways our bodies can look?
Also, make your own stuff! Sincerely! I'd love to see it! The more trans art in the world the better!
What I love less to see is other trans guys griping over how "that's not even what top surgery scars look like!!" like hey speak for yourself? Also, you're taking this way too literally.
Treating trans men as near identical to cis men in every context isn't being a good ally to us, actually.
Like yes, treat us with respect, recognize us as men and be normal about it (without stereotyping, alienating, or ostracizing us), but if treating us "as men" means not recognizing us as *trans* men even in contexts where that really matters, if you can only respect our identities when treating us uniformly to how you would *cis* men, then you're not a good trans ally.
Being a good trans ally means actively listening to us to understand how our transness influences our personal experiences, our sociopolitical positions, our interactions with gendered concepts, with manhood itself and what society expects and rejects in us as men- and being individuals who moved away from/rejected the womanhood and traditional femininity expected of us.
To walk into every conversation about trans men with the attitude "well you're a man so I'll treat you just as I would any man (aka cis men)" is obtusely overly simplistic at best, and outright degendering and dehumanizing at worst- denying us recognition without the accusation or implication we are misgendering ourselves when our experiences differ from cis men.
We are men and we aren't cis men, and acknowledging that is not misgendering, it is not insidious to bring up, it is not obfuscating to talking about us as men, it is just actual, literal reality.
Sanding away fundamental aspects of our experience to cram us into the boxes you expect of cis men is not being a good trans ally. It feels obvious but for some reason it just isn't for some people. You can absolutely respect us as men while understanding we are transgender men, and not just 'transgender' as a separate marginalizing qualifier tacked on to someone who would be otherwise identical to a cis man if you took that away.
That's not how this works. These two concepts literally cannot exist without the other, or we would not be who we are. Our transness is not separate or incidental to our manhood and our experiences related to manhood. Our manhood is not incidental to our transness and our experiences related to being trans. You need to respect us in our culmination, as a unique and valid expression of manhood, as a unique and important expression of transgender existence.
Now of course, an individual trans man may not want to be referred to as a trans man, just as a man, and you should respect that. In day to day, a trans man might not want you to treat him any differently than you would a cis man, and you should respect that. That's not the sort of thing I'm talking about here.
It's that when it comes to recognizing how we must navigate society, patriarchy, gender dynamics, and gendered oppression- erasing the reality of our transness to treat us as functionally cis men besides a few quirks is not at all showing solidarity to us, but ignorance. It is a flattening of who and what we are and what we go through.
This kind of attitude is not helpful or supportive, it impedes our conversations about our lives, our rights, and our needs which are unique to us- unique needs which are non-delegitimizing to our identities as men, no matter if they divert from what cis men experience. These needs not only deserve recognition- but any proper allyship requires engaging with these important aspects of our reality.
There are many, many people whose only understanding of manhood is through defining it by its association with power.
Whether that be through a feminist lens regarding manhood or masculinity only through the analysis of cis patriarchal hierarchy, and/or an uncritical repetition of gendered norms produced by such a system.
So what ends up happening when a transgender man explains he is disempowered, and disempowered specifically in relationship to being a man and how the ideas (just like this) attached to it effect him, the only conclusion they can come to is that he must be implying he isn't a man, that he is misgendering himself or undermining his identity, or that he is weak and failing to live up to it- or that he is lying.
The complicated marginalization of trans manhood as manhood is so radically contradictory to the patriarchal values of power which men are expected to fulfill, and so contradictory to the intensely cis-normative approach to feminism and gendered oppression, that his experiences end up in a placeless void of compounded invalidation. Although coming from the very same place.
Enough that to even have acknowledgment for his experience of gendered oppression, his identity as a man must be severed from the very context of its existence. Just transgender, just a generic, unspecific transphobia. Denying the specific modality which produced the reality of his transgender existence. Cutting his social experience into pieces, either cutting out the manhood, or cutting out the weakness.
This continues on his invisibility, furthering the doubt of the validity of his own reality. Feeding into the inevitability that his struggle will go unnoticed and uncared for, and will not receive the attention needed to help him, or to change these things.
Ironically and integrally, all of this enabling his marginalization specifically because- well because he is a man.
Because of the expectations of what it means to be a man, and how we cannot imagine his experience of a specifically marginalized manhood.
in this house we unapologetically love and cherish trans men and listen to their voices and their needs and their very real struggles unique to them. love your trans brothers. love your trans brothers of colour. love your intersex trans brothers. love your disabled trans brothers.
remember that its better to love a trans man than a dead daughter. please
One time when I was a kid a group of girls and I had to treat another student for hypothermia by ourselves because she had so many invisible health issues that the adults we asked for help didn't believe us. The student in question was actively hallucinating. When I finally ran for help the people I grabbed were slow as shit to respond, casually joking about how "dramatic" the person in question was.
The kid was picked up by an ambulance 30 minutes later.
Now as an adult working in security I get SO MANY folks- upper-middle aged mostly- coming to me to 'rat out' people they think are faking it.
I was once sent into a bathroom because a client demanded that the "fucker won't get out, so go drag them out"- I was NEVER going to do that, so I did a wellness check instead. You know who it was? A person recently released from the hospital after a car accident. They had a hole in their skull and major hearing loss. They couldn't answer the owner because they couldn't HEAR the owner.
Another time about a homeless man who got around town by kicking the ground from his wheelchair. "You know he doesn't actually need that thing, his legs work fine, it's just for pity points"- Oh, so he's not paralyzed, his wheelchair is performative? Funny story Dale, I actually know that guy, he was backed over by a truck and has chronic pain from his shattered pelvis. But sure, let's make him stand up and walk everywhere so nobody feels too bad for him and tries to help him or something.
"She doesn't need that scooter, I've seen her get out of it."
"Look how fat he is, because he just rides around and refuses to get up."
"She doesn't really need that cane- she comes here without it all the time"
Sincerely, truly, from the bottom of my heart- as someone who isn't physically disabled but hears this shit all the time- fuck off
[Medicine and the law of gender binarism portray the process of transsexuality as a narrow and dangerous path, a definitive, irreversible mutation, that can be achieved only in extreme conditions, such that few people, as few as possible, would be able to follow that path. I, however, would say that the path is easier and more pleasant than most of the experiences and experiments that the dominant discourse suggests are desirable and obligatory and which have been legitimized by medical and judicial institutions. In itself, gender transition is easier to accomplish than going to school every day at the same time throughout the long years of childhood and adolescence, easier than a faithful monogamous marriage, easier than pregnancy and childbirth, easier than starting a family, easier than finding a rewarding full-time job, easier than being happy in a consumer society, easier than growing old and being shut away in a retirement home. I would go so far as to say that, contrary to what is routinely claimed, the mutation process that accompanies gender transitioning is one of the most beautiful and joyous things that I have ever done in my life. All the things that are terrible and terrifying about transsexuality and gender transitioning are not found in the process of transition itself, but in the way in which the boundaries between the sexes punish and threaten to kill anyone who dares cross them. It is not gender transitioning that is horrifying and dangerous, but the regime of sexual difference.]
It is incredibly strange to see that some trans people's response to the distorted ideas of gender socialization that TERFs sling around is to basically deny their conclusions... but validate the premise?
"Trans people do not have the same experiences of internalizing gendered teachings as cis people, because even before we come out our transness influences us"
Yea!! 👍 woohoo
"...by which I mean even before we came out we were always innately boys/girls and therefore naturally were only internalizing the ideas about our Correct gender about ourselves. So actuallyyyy ☝️we are not (agab) socialized we are (gender identity) socialized."
???????????????????
Okay so like
A. This is engaging with the knock-off TERF version of socialization way too much. It's actually, really, super not how this works. You're ascribing too much legitimacy to an approach to gender and socialization that is genuinely incoherent, because it's bio-essentialism pantomiming faux-sociology. It's just more essentialist boy-brain/girl-brain shit. Which brings me to:
B. You are participating in some essentialist boy-brain/girl-brain shit rn. But doing it where you have the Right Brain. This is not the validation you think it is.
We are going from "trans people have nuanced experiences navigating gendered teachings" and into some mystical "I only subconsciously absorbed messages directed at my latent identity in a completely exclusive, binary way, because of some innate, pure gendered impulse which had complete and proper discernment onto knowing which messaging and experiences society treated me with were for me or The Other. So anything directed towards me because of my agab was water-off-a-ducks-back, I did not take it personally, and it had no lasting effect, therefore did not impact my gender-psyche. Because my True Gender warded it off.
Because of that I was actually socialized Correctly, with all the Correct implications on how that effects my behaviors and thoughts, because men and women integrally are/think/act differently and I'm like that but the correct one ✨✨✨ yay ✨✨"
C. ...nonbinary people who????? Whats that
It's like. This is coming off like you are terrified of being invalidated right now but this is not a validating rebuttal. Or realistic. It's not even this black and white for cis people? There are so many issues here.
I guess I'll put it like this.
If there is a trans person who grew up as their agab, lived as cis for decades, totally gender conforming, completely internalized what society said they were supposed to be like according to their agab, were taught specific behaviors and ideas because of their agab, and took those on as a part of their self perception, like really did live thinking they were a girl/boy for a long time- then one day began to question their gender and only then realized they weren't their agab? They're still trans, and still valid in their identity.
Like, there still would be nuance to their historical relationship with gender, it wouldn't be without trans influence long before knowing they're trans, but they could totally have internalized any degree of agab targeted teachings from the start and had that influence their perceptions of themself and the world, and that fact is not invalidating their identity or dooming it.
In fact, that's not unusual at all? It's normal for stuff like that to have some kind of impact on us. The obvious fact being ignored here is that at any point we can call these ideas, behaviors, and teachings from past experiences into question, and reevaluate our relationship to them- and you know what? Cis people do this all the time too. Their ideas of what their gender means to them changes, they experience new dimensions to it, they reject old ones. It's all complicated and affects us in personal, ever evolving ways. Socialization is an ongoing, lifelong process. One thing of many that TERFs ignore.
Being influenced in some way from living or being raised as our agab is nuanced for trans people but it is real, and completely denying any impact from it comes off more like dysphoric insecurity than anything else to me.
Which I don't want to be totally unsympathetic to, it is a fear born in reaction to transphobic attitudes like that of TERFs, and a world which treats out agab experiences as tainting us and invalidating us.
I also feel this kind of thinking is an extreme response to what is really needing to be communicated- that you experienced things differently than cis people of your agab, that it isn't a simple binary "male" or "female" socialization you lived. There really is no one universal "male" or "female" socialization, especially for trans people, and trying to fit us into one and is not ever going to be truly reflective of our variable circumstances. I think that's extremely important to acknowledge.
But saying you purely and exclusively experienced the secondhand socialization of your gender identity is not communicating that reality, neither is it saving you from invalidation. It's building a mythology for yourself still set upon that same strict gender binary, which was made to exclude us.
The thing is, having a mixed gendered experience is literally okay, that's extremely normal trans shit, and TERFs are just plainly wrong about what they think those experiences imply.
Because gendered socialization isn't some bullshit where how we grew up makes us have permanent, terminal boy-brain/girl-brains, that our minds just calcify into for eternity. Acting as Proof to why The Two Genders are fundamentally and distinctly Different, as we are irrevocably Separate and rigidly assigned forever and ever...
Because... I mean come on. That's just kinda dumb.
Yes, all of this, but also... gendered socialisation isn't simply being sat down and told "this is boy behaviour and this is girl behaviour" in a way that you can just internalise the 'right' lessons - it's enforced. It shapes your experiences and changes your life's trajectory in large and small ways.
Whether we are perceived as a girl or a boy, our behaviour, options, opportunities, and knowledge are artificially limited in ways we have little to no control over, as a direct result of our perceived gender.
I didn't get to opt out of being subject to a blanket ban on [children perceived as] girls playing contact sports in school. I didn't get to choose to ignore being "mistakenly" not entered for higher exams by a teacher who believed that [children perceived as] girls don't excel academically. I wasn't allowed to choose my clothing or hairstyle as a child because I wasn't trusted to make the appropriate choices for my perceived gender.
You don't get to opt out of the expectations and restrictions forced on you ever since you were first swaddled in a blue or pink blanket. Even if you deliberately act outside of what is permitted based on your perceived gender, it comes with an acknowledgement that your behaviour is a transgression: something that has to be hidden, something that may carry the weight of shame, something that may come with consequences.
How you were raised affects you but it doesn't define you. If we accept that we are not more or less masculine, feminine, or nonbinary based on how other people treat us, surely we can apply that to the past as well as the present.
It is incredibly strange to see that some trans people's response to the distorted ideas of gender socialization that TERFs sling around is to basically deny their conclusions... but validate the premise?
"Trans people do not have the same experiences of internalizing gendered teachings as cis people, because even before we come out our transness influences us"
Yea!! 👍 woohoo
"...by which I mean even before we came out we were always innately boys/girls and therefore naturally were only internalizing the ideas about our Correct gender about ourselves. So actuallyyyy ☝️we are not (agab) socialized we are (gender identity) socialized."
???????????????????
Okay so like
A. This is engaging with the knock-off TERF version of socialization way too much. It's actually, really, super not how this works. You're ascribing too much legitimacy to an approach to gender and socialization that is genuinely incoherent, because it's bio-essentialism pantomiming faux-sociology. It's just more essentialist boy-brain/girl-brain shit. Which brings me to:
B. You are participating in some essentialist boy-brain/girl-brain shit rn. But doing it where you have the Right Brain. This is not the validation you think it is.
We are going from "trans people have nuanced experiences navigating gendered teachings" and into some mystical "I only subconsciously absorbed messages directed at my latent identity in a completely exclusive, binary way, because of some innate, pure gendered impulse which had complete and proper discernment onto knowing which messaging and experiences society treated me with were for me or The Other. So anything directed towards me because of my agab was water-off-a-ducks-back, I did not take it personally, and it had no lasting effect, therefore did not impact my gender-psyche. Because my True Gender warded it off.
Because of that I was actually socialized Correctly, with all the Correct implications on how that effects my behaviors and thoughts, because men and women integrally are/think/act differently and I'm like that but the correct one ✨✨✨ yay ✨✨"
C. ...nonbinary people who????? Whats that
It's like. This is coming off like you are terrified of being invalidated right now but this is not a validating rebuttal. Or realistic. It's not even this black and white for cis people? There are so many issues here.
I guess I'll put it like this.
If there is a trans person who grew up as their agab, lived as cis for decades, totally gender conforming, completely internalized what society said they were supposed to be like according to their agab, were taught specific behaviors and ideas because of their agab, and took those on as a part of their self perception, like really did live thinking they were a girl/boy for a long time- then one day began to question their gender and only then realized they weren't their agab? They're still trans, and still valid in their identity.
Like, there still would be nuance to their historical relationship with gender, it wouldn't be without trans influence long before knowing they're trans, but they could totally have internalized any degree of agab targeted teachings from the start and had that influence their perceptions of themself and the world, and that fact is not invalidating their identity or dooming it.
In fact, that's not unusual at all? It's normal for stuff like that to have some kind of impact on us. The obvious fact being ignored here is that at any point we can call these ideas, behaviors, and teachings from past experiences into question, and reevaluate our relationship to them- and you know what? Cis people do this all the time too. Their ideas of what their gender means to them changes, they experience new dimensions to it, they reject old ones. It's all complicated and affects us in personal, ever evolving ways. Socialization is an ongoing, lifelong process. One thing of many that TERFs ignore.
Being influenced in some way from living or being raised as our agab is nuanced for trans people but it is real, and completely denying any impact from it comes off more like dysphoric insecurity than anything else to me.
Which I don't want to be totally unsympathetic to, it is a fear born in reaction to transphobic attitudes like that of TERFs, and a world which treats out agab experiences as tainting us and invalidating us.
I also feel this kind of thinking is an extreme response to what is really needing to be communicated- that you experienced things differently than cis people of your agab, that it isn't a simple binary "male" or "female" socialization you lived. There really is no one universal "male" or "female" socialization, especially for trans people, and trying to fit us into one and is not ever going to be truly reflective of our variable circumstances. I think that's extremely important to acknowledge.
But saying you purely and exclusively experienced the secondhand socialization of your gender identity is not communicating that reality, neither is it saving you from invalidation. It's building a mythology for yourself still set upon that same strict gender binary, which was made to exclude us.
The thing is, having a mixed gendered experience is literally okay, that's extremely normal trans shit, and TERFs are just plainly wrong about what they think those experiences imply.
Because gendered socialization isn't some bullshit where how we grew up makes us have permanent, terminal boy-brain/girl-brains, that our minds just calcify into for eternity. Acting as Proof to why The Two Genders are fundamentally and distinctly Different, as we are irrevocably Separate and rigidly assigned forever and ever...
Because... I mean come on. That's just kinda dumb.
i identified as a butch for a bit! I changed my mind because in my case it was me trying to avoid wanting to be something I wasn't sure I COULD be! did you "lose" something when I, a trans woman, decided to present more femme?
if every cis butch woman in the world became a trans man right now, that would be an unambiguously, inarguably good and positive thing, because that would be people choosing to live the lives they wanted as the kinds of people they wanted to be, end of statement. personal autonomy isn't something to bitch over!
there are many things tumblr as a whole has to learn but one of them is “someone can reblog a post without them endorsing every action the op has ever taken, we are not beholden to do background checks on the producers of every shitpost on the internet”
Dude. I feel the like bar for what someone considers masculine on a woman is like. Extremely low.
"Women can be masculine" and it's like. A woman wearing pants, and the women pictured are not even wearing men's pants it's like women's pants which are custom built different from men's pants to emphasizes her curves. Even "boyfriend jeans" are high waisted and all the models advertising them are overtly feminine.
"Women can be masculine" but then it's a woman in a pantsuit made to accentuate her femininity and it looks distinctly different from men's suits. And she's still almost always with long hair and/or makeup and jewelry on.
"Women can be masculine" and it's a woman dressed down in a tshirt and jeans or a hoodie and she's not even trying to be masc but she's got like "no makeup look" makeup on
"Women can be masculine" and the woman in question is almost certainly clean shaven on her whole body without a glance of body hair.
"Women can be masculine" and she's just slightly punk or goth and still has a full face of makeup but maybe a pixie cut and a leather jacket or something.
"Women can be masculine" and the clothes she's wearing that are modeled after men's clothes have the fucking cinched waist and have noticeably softened the silhouette so she's still curvy and identifiably a woman
"Women can be masculine" but any time you go to the damn hairdresser when you ask for a men's haircut they'll give you a pixie cut or some shit. Even when you show them the picture. Because Pixie cut is as masc as you can go, or maybe the notorious side shave.
"Women can be masculine" but almost every example of masculine women's fashion you see pulled up, even when you literally look up "masculine women's fashion," REFUSES to compromise on maintaining a level of feminine beauty standards- which adds florals and delicate fem accessories and long luscious hair and form fitting clothes and full faces of makeup because you NEED TO BE BEAUTIFUL!!! YOU MUST REMAIN BEAUTIFUL YOU MUST BE IDENTIFIABLY WOMAN!!! If you are not still soft and accessible and appealing to cishet men then ??????????
I find if you want to see genuinely overtly masculine presenting women you have to go looking for examples of butches and studs and people who are openly gnc in identity. Because their nonconformity, their masculinity, makes a tangible impact on their lives and experience of self, because being masculine women actually means something to their experience of the world. Because being a masc woman is not treated as completely unnoteworthy and totally acceptable- it is a statement that garners reaction, because society has serious fucking issues with masculine women.
The fact that the threshold for what is considered masculine on women is so low, that they can be dressed in ways that would be seen as overtly effeminate on a cis man, or are totally feminine if not for the mildest masculine or non-traditional gendered signifier, this is exactly a product of how sincerely unacceptable masculine gender nonconformity is on femininely assigned subjects.
The wholesale refusal of femininity and an overt expression of masculinity conflicts so harshly with society's ideas of womanhood, and the ideas of who we feel gets to be masculine, that most people literally cannot even conceive of a genuinely masculine woman without feminizing her in some way. At least, they cannot image such a masculine woman in a positive way.
If she's cis having a level of masculinity similar to cis men's is literally an impossibility, if she's trans and not committing to a feminine (often hyperfeminine) presentation she gets called a man and if she's masc then "whats the point in being trans then" because being masc and being a woman is just inconceivable. Wanting both is seen as a contradiction, as impossible.
And you know what? That femininity imposed onto these sort of masc women- it's forgiving.
That femininity is the thing that keeps her marked as a woman, not some gender ambiguous thing. It is forgiving as she is still containing something that which makes her valuable as a woman. Femininity: Beauty, desirability, softness, etc. She retains a noticeable difference to delineate her from the presentation of men, even when wearing something masculinely inspired- she must be identifiably different. Identifiably woman. Put her in that suit but make sure she is slender and non-imposing and perfectly coifed.
You see it in the way people talk about treading traditionally masculine associated things as a woman. As much as there is positive intent in the affirmations you often see of "you can still do (traditionally masculine thing) and be feminine!!" lying beneath this reassurance is an anxiety. Of being unfeminine, of actually being interpreted as overtly masculine.
Looking up masculine women's fashion I very quickly encountered two separate posts containing statements of "you can still be feminine while dressing masculine." There is this unsaid rule simmering everywhere that being genuinely perceived as a masculine woman is not a good thing. It's not "it's okay to be masculine" its honestly never that. It's "you're still feminine if you like/do/wear masculine things." Because being feminine means being a woman. It is saying "you're not less of a woman." It's why it's so important to perform feminine signifiers to balance out even vaguely masculine traits. Reassure, reassert, your womanhood.
"You can still be a feminine woman and do masculine things" can very much bleed into gender expectations of women's performance of femininity even when vocalized through a well intentioned, feminist lens. Because femininity and womanhood get so wrapped up together, that when uplifting femininity and feminine women in the face of misogyny, it can carry a veiled, unspoken rejection of gender nonconformity.
It is still internalized that masculinity on women is derogatory, and so the masculine realms women wish to traverse must first be altered, must have feminine allowance created, in order for women to have a space to participate. It empowers femininity, but it also requires it. Some may be familiar with how sometimes your capacity for femininity is not just being reassured, but insisted upon you.
Rejecting femininity then is rejecting womanhood itself. Unacceptable within patriarchal society, and yet sometimes even unacceptable within what would otherwise be feminist spaces. You see this historically in feminist movements, a rejection of gender nonconformity, ironically echoing patriarchy's rules on gender performance.
Refusing being palatably feminine is refusing forgiveness for your masculinity.
Masculinity on women represents ugliness, unwantedness, disgust, being loud and intrusive (not submissive and servile and quiet), they're unhygienic, aggressive, ill-mannered/unpolite (untamed), they are unworthy and worthless to a patriarchal society.
"Woman can be masculine" but the acceptably masculine woman you imagine is not hairy, not broad, not muscular, not fat (in a non slim-thicc way), not physically imposing, not with a deep voice, not speaking gruffly or with monotone. Maybe her voice is raspy and that's okay because it's sexy and you can forget that if she doesn't perform an overly friendly demeanor she's gonna get called a bitch. The specter of that acceptable masculine woman still retains delicate facial features and plucked/shaped eyebrows and clear skin and a slender body and she's beautiful oh yes she's still attractive.
In fact, she's hot. Her masculine gestures in her appearance are not neutral they are a sexual curiosity, never spoiling the fact she is still such a beautiful woman in all the ways that matter. Masculinity is acceptable on women, yes of course, you're so right. Because people want to fuck a tomboy whose masculinity is a non-threatening exterior you can remove to explore and conquer the feminine desirability beneath.
"Women can be masculine" just as long as you're acceptably feminine enough to have sex with. Or else you're treated like a hideous troll that gets no right to human dignity and is the punchline of jokes- and oh the horror and revulsion of it all.
It's part of why trans women are seen as unable to be "real" women to transphobes, because they're stained by the masculinity projected onto them, which conflicts with what a woman is expected to be. Many caricatures focus on the clashing of masculine traits with feminine attire because to be a masculine woman is like an oxymoron, it is an absurdity. Masculinity on women is degraded and disgusting and a trans woman is assumed to be automatically and inherently masculine. It's not just that theyre seen as men demeaning themselves to be feminine and to be women, but they're rejected under the pretense that because they must be masculine they would make terrible women. No one wants a masculine woman.
It's why it's so horrifying and disgusting the prospect of those gullible insane women and girls mutilating their bodies to try and become men 😟 because they're eviscerating their entire worth to society as women by rejecting femininity and destroying their fertility and becoming completely garbage as sexual objects and reproduction labor !!! I don't even want to fuck them !!! We have to detrans them lickity split on the double to repossess as a society !!! If not then they are a nonentity to be crushed under the boot of society with no regard! No one wants a masculine woman!
"Women can be masculi-" I am STRIKING YOU WITH 10000000 LASER BEAMS ‼️‼️‼️ I AM BLOWING YOU UP WITH 70000 MILLION ATOM BOMBS ‼️‼️LISTEN TO LITERALLY ANY BUTCHES
ALSO.
Even those women with the pixie cuts and the leather jackets? People are assholes to them too actually
I mean literally even Princess Peach can't wear pants without some dudebro getting in your ear bitching about how the woke mob is making her too masculine
As I read into transmisogyny theory, I feel a frustration at the repeated behavior to place a comparison between transfeminine experiences as contrasted to a transmasculine one, done to point out the uniqueness and severity of transmisogyny- yet unnecessarily and regularly undermining the experiences of transmasculinity in how those comparisons are handled and addressed.
Comparisons that will make definitive sounding statements about the transmasculine or masc GNC experience, yet neither quote nor collaborate with any transmasculine voices. Nor do they offer any insight to transmasculine experience beyond these comparisons, and end up presenting a very generalized and simplistic perspective of it, contrasted to the more robust elaboration of transmisogyny the text is centered on.
While there's use to compare trans experiences to elaborate on differences (and similarities), there is serious issue in this uneven portrayal. It is an issue to encounter major transfeminist texts only offering simplistic generalizations on transmasculine experience, their inclusion centered more on how useful it works as comparison to support the analysis on transmisogyny, than treated with respect for the far more complicated concepts they actually are.
Anecdotes and footnotes made up of partial or skewed perspectives and conclusions, rather than actual, real lives with a lot more nuance than these takes give them.
It's an effect of transmasculine erasure, and the erasure of gender nonconforming masculinity in society, and in feminism. I don't feel it is often ill intentioned, that the authors seek to actively dismiss us, but they clearly show a lack of familiarity and an irresponsibility with handling the subject. Our lack of voice becomes filled in with extrapolations of cis male or female experiences, or transfem experiences played in reverse. Our absence so accepted that we are not sought out to fill it.
I do think these authors, at the least, hold unconscious bias, as many people do. That bias is left unconfronted by this lack of transmasculine input and analysis, and this bias feeds the lack of desire to seek it out. A bias which foundationally treats us as having less important lives, less hardship, and less important things to say.
As I traverse these texts I cannot help but really begin to understand just how much this influences the impulse within transfeminist spaces and the trans community at large to devalue transmasculine experiences with their oppression. How this pattern was born from our erasure and now further feeds and justifies it.
I cannot ignore the complicated situation it creates for us, as important of content these texts contain and how universally recommended they are. How difficult that makes it when we raise our voices to criticize these elements. When passive devaluing and refusal to engage with the complexity of transmasculine experience becomes a casual element of analyzing transmisogyny through means of unbalanced comparison, then the disagreement with this kind of behavior and its conclusions can quickly be interpreted as downplaying the severity of transmisogyny.
Compound that with a hypervigilance from the trauma of transmisogyny, the negative stereotypes and attitudes about male entitlement or anti-feminism projected onto trans men, the normalized dismissal of our voices and our treatment as self-centered and attention seeking from misogyny, the attitude it is unimportant to listen and center us that these important texts contribute to, a very simplified understanding on man/masc=easy and woman/fem=hard (ideas left unchallenged because of a lack of transmasculine and masc gnc voices), and the general strain of anti-transmasculine prejudice within society and our communities which has not been properly analyzed or addressed, and therefore no one is expected to be held accountable for.
Then you create this toxic storm of the discourse we find ourselves within today.
One where transmasculine people are trying to formulate theory and discussed lived experiences through a transfeminist framework which lacks content addressing them, in argument with transfeminists (both tfem and tmasc alike) who have more robust library of theory to reference regarding transmisogyny, but theory which contains major blindspots and flaws which cannot be fixed or addressed without transmasculine input. Theory which normalizes an attitude that proclaims that input is unimportant.
I cannot emphasize that this is exactly why transmasculine analysis is needed in the field and in our discussions of transfeminism. While I am doing my research try to create a more disciplined analysis I continue to find many holes in our discussions of transfeminism, much of it I feel is carried over from cisfeminism. I find these texts very informative and agree they are important, but can be very flawed in its approach to us, and sometimes outright unwelcoming.
Having a measured approach of accepting its positives while voicing legitimate criticisms is necessary if we wish to improve our discussions and future theories. Outright dismissal of these works get us nowhere, neither is obfuscating the issues these works have and placing them upon an untouchable pedestal.
I don't mean to throw away these works or these authors by pointing out my criticisms of how they handle addressing transmasculine experience and how normalized it is to only address the transmasculine experience to say "you don't have to handle this."
Because even when that statement is true, it can be incredibly incomplete, because it fails to include how these concepts instead manifest differently. All it says is "you do not have to handle this" and moves on, without acknowledging, or seemingly understanding, what we actually do have to handle, that we do experience these concepts effecting our oppression in ways that are important and harmful.
The repeated assumption and implication that what we experience is more simple and less severe is a failure of these authors and a disservice to us and the trans community. We should expect better, and it is possible to voice that criticism while still valuing other aspects of their work.
Their work would be better without this, it does not require centering us to avoid actively or passively delegitimizing our struggles. It only takes giving us the consideration we need and deserve. If you do not wish to make the effort to listen to us, then do make the decision to speak about us.
I find it deeply disheartening just how frequently I encounter this approach over encountering our collaboration. That speaks for itself.
Feminism is an ever evolving branch of theories, which requires looking at itself critically to progress into better and more inclusive forms. Transfeminism is an important branch/evolution of feminism itself, and we should learn from its past contributions and continue to build upon its many positives, while being critical and understanding its failures- and bridging those gaps to make it more whole.
Just as feminism as a whole always must grow, so too must we demand transfeminism to evolve. We all will benefit from a more inclusive reform.
